Tottenham Hotspur manager Antonio Conte has insisted that his side's performance in their Champions League goalless stalemate with Eintracht Frankfurt gave him "great confidence".
The Lilywhites were seeking to bounce back from defeats to Sporting Lisbon and Arsenal at the Deutsche Bank Park but wasted a number of chances in a 0-0 draw with the Europa League winners.
Harry Kane, Son Heung-min and Ivan Perisic all saw first-half efforts fizz just wide of the post, and Oliver Glasner's side broke forward on a number of occasions in an end-to-end game.
Tottenham remain second in the group after that stalemate, and Conte believes that there was a lot to like about his side's performance in front of a hostile away atmosphere.
"Today I think the performance gave me great confidence. We coped with a difficult atmosphere to play here in the right way with great personality," football.london quotes Conte as saying in his post-game press conference.
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"I think that it's important for us to understand that playing at home or away it has to be the same way. The personality maybe when you stay away has to be stronger. Tonight in this aspect I'm really happy because I had a great response from my players.
"It's not easy to play in this stadium in this atmosphere with a lot of noise around you but at the same time from the start we put a lot of pressure, we tried to be aggressive in every zone of the pitch.
"Then at the same time I didn't think we risked a lot, taking big risks. We created chances to score, but if I have to find a situation that we need to improve on after this game for sure we need to be more clinical.
"Today we had the chances to score and you know very well that football is simple, to win you have to score otherwise if we are lucky, if we are good, you get a draw. I think today for the big effort we did with the whole team maybe we deserved much, much more."
Conte elected to keep faith with the same starting XI from the defeat to Arsenal in the North London derby, and the Italian could only call upon Bryan Gil for attacking reinforcements.
Dejan Kulusevski and Lucas Moura were both absent due to injury, but Conte refused to stray away from his 3-4-3 system as Richarlison, Kane and Son all featured from the first whistle.
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Gil was brought on for his first competitive appearance of the season at the Deutsche Bank Park, and Conte admitted that his side still need more transfer windows to fix their lack of attacking depth.
"Today I made substitutions and played Gil, and Gil is a young player and we have to try to involve all the players. We have to try to do our best. And then go step by step to improve and become stronger as a squad," Conte added.
"If you think 'yeah I want to make some rotations' and it is a bit difficult. We know this situation with the club and the club knows very well we need time and patience, to try to go step by step.
"I spoke about the transfer market, that we needed more transfer markets to reach a good level. We know this. At the same time we want to be competitive, to try to do everything."
Tottenham now boast four points in Group D and remain second in the section courtesy of their superior goal difference over Frankfurt, while leaders Sporting Lisbon are only two points clear at the top after their crushing 4-1 defeat to basement side Marseille.
The Lilywhites welcome Frankfurt to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium next Wednesday following Saturday evening's Premier League clash with Brighton & Hove Albion at the Amex Stadium.
Ben Knapton
