Antonio Conte has admitted that the Premier League creates a "really, really high" motivation for managers amid speculation over a return for him to Italy.
The Spurs boss has been heavily tipped to make a return to Serie A after a difficult season personally in England with illness, the death of three close friends, and his wife and daughter still living in Turin while he works at Tottenham. Conte was asked whether it was still a big motivation for him on a personal level every week to compete in the Premier League against managers such as Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp and this year Erik ten Hag.
He admitted that the challenge still excites him but reiterated that you need a strong team and a will to be competitive with the top sides.
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"Yeah I think that for sure to play the Premier League, to be a coach in the Premier League it means you have to be ready to face a great competition," he said. "To face important players, important clubs, important coaches and for this reason the motivation is really, really high.
"For this reason you want to be strong, to have a strong team and to try to be competitive."
Conte recently needed to recover back home in Italy for around four weeks in total following emergency surgery to remove his gallbladder and he was asked about the support he received from the club, chairman Daniel Levy and Spurs' managing director of football Fabio Paratici.
"Yeah but in that period, I was in touch every day with the staff for many, many times in a day, also with the players," he said. "Then with Fabio I was in touch and sometimes we send a message with my agent."
Conte had earlier said that he was joking when he suggested after the Champions League exit at the hands of AC Milan that the club might sack him before the end of the season.
"This was a provocation, you understand, about my future. A provocation, a joke, 'una battuta'. When you tell something, to joke," he said.
"You asked me about the future and I said to you that you don't know what happens, because maybe the club can sack me. But I repeat: I don't think the club is thinking this. The club sees everyday what me and my staff, we are doing for this club. It was only an answer about my future.
"I think there is not one club that can tell the manager you stay here until the end of the season. You know football is really strange. you don't know what happens tomorrow, you understand. But I repeat: in my opinion we try in every moment to do everything, me and my staff, and I think the club appreciates this.
"Because if you continue to ask me if I sign a new contract, it means that maybe the club appreciates what we are doing, the work that we doing, in this one year and a half."
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