'Silence is not good' - Conte wants to 'protect' Tottenham after recent refereeing decisions

Antonio Conte doesn't want Tottenham to 'shut up' over recent decisions he says went against his team.

The Spurs boss was exasperated twice last week, first by Newcastle United's opening goal in their 2-1 win at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium last Sunday, despite Conte's belief that striker Callum Wilson obstructed goalkeeper Hugo Lloris.

Then, in the dying seconds of Wednesday's 1-1 home draw with Sporting CP in the Champions League, a Harry Kane goal was disallowed for offside after a lengthy VAR check, which meant so much enraged Conte that he received a red card for his reaction.

"I spoke with the sporting director [Fabio Paratici] and I also sent a message to [president] Daniel Levy," Conte told a press conference on Friday. "Also after what happened against Newcastle, we talked about it, because there is a very, very clear image that it was a foul.

"Sometimes you can accept and say, 'OK, they made a mistake, we have to move on'. But at the same time, I think sometimes you have to try to go and talk and protect your club. I have to protect my club and the club has to protect itself. Silence is not good.

"Since the start of the season, I have always said that I do not want to comment on every decision. And what happened? Every decision has been a disaster since the start, between the Premier League and the Champions League All I ask is to be a little careful and try to have the same evaluation for each team."

The draw with Sporting leaves Spurs with a crucial final group game in Marseille on Tuesday, and Conte admitted that was his side's main objective, despite a Premier League clash at Bournemouth taking place before Saturday.

"In the Premier League we have a lot of games ahead of us," he said. "In the Champions League we want to have more games to play, but there is a final on Tuesday and that's the difference between tomorrow's Premier League game and a Champions League game.

"In the Premier League, you can have time to recover. In the Champions League, we are going to play a final. For this reason, my decision is to try to make the best decision to fully understand who are the players who are really tired because I don't want to take any risks.

"For us, it's a final on Tuesday. I'm trying to make my best selection tomorrow because we also want to do a good result against Bournemouth."