Antonio Conte believes Manchester United are on a different level to Tottenham Hotspur

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Tottenham Hotspur manager Antonio Conte believes Manchester United are on a ‘different level’ to his side.

The Italian’s comments came straight after his side were beaten 2-0 at Old Trafford, in what was a dominant performance by Erik ten Hag’s Red Devils.

According to Opta, Manchester United had 28 shots in the match; the most by a team in a Premier League match this season.

It was also the most that a team managed by Conte has faced in a top-flight game, in what was the 318th league match he has taken charge of between Serie A and the Premier League.

Despite coming into the clash at the Theatre of Dreams seven points ahead of United, albeit with Ten Hag’s men having a game in hand, Spurs couldn’t cope with our quality and intensity.

There was a real gulf in class and hunger which equally irked and concerned the former Juventus, Chelsea and Inter Milan manager.

Antonio Conte believes Manchester United are on a different level to Tottenham

While making reference to the money Manchester United have splashed out in recent transfer windows, Conte admitted his side struggled to compete against the twenty-time league champions, in what was the first managerial meeting between the Italian and Dutchman.

“I consider United a really good team,” Conte told Amazon Prime Sport.

“You know very well the potential of this club, what they did in the transfer market and what money they can spend. For sure we are speaking about two different levels.

“At the same time, I think in this type of game we can do much better. We are struggling. We struggled against Chelsea, we struggled against Arsenal, we struggled today against United.”

Manchester United had 19 shots alone in the first half with Hugo Lloris’ goal being pummelled, but the deadlock was broken just after half-time through a deflected Fred strike, and then Bruno Fernandes scored his second goal of the season with a beautiful curling effort.

Conte’s teams are usually so pragmatic, but even he had no qualms or complaints about how the game played out.

“United deserved to win, they played a really good game,” the Tottenham boss said.