Antonio Conte has warned Tottenham Hotspur chairman Daniel Levy that the club cannot afford to make any more big transfer blunders if they are to match his ambition.

Tottenham loaned out transfer business worth more than £100 million in the January window, sending record signing Tanguy Ndombele back to Lyon, Giovani Lo Celso to Villarreal and Bryan Gil, who only signed last summer, to Valencia. 

Dele Alli was also allowed to join Everton, initially on a free transfer, while Spurs signed Juventus duo Rodrigo Bentancur and Dejan Kulusevski, who Conte revealed he could convert into a right wing-back.

Conte described his squad as being more “complete” thanks to the incomings, but stressed the departures proved that Tottenham have been getting it badly wrong in the transfer market and cannot afford any more expensive mistakes.

But, despite admitting Spurs have a long road ahead of them, Conte stressed that he is not interested in trying to build a squad simply capable of challenging to get back into the top four, which means Levy will need to back the Italian again in the summer, when he will want, at the very least, a new central defender, a forward and, potentially, a specialist wing-back.

“It was strange to send players on loan, and sell one player, in the January transfer window,” said Conte. “It was strange because it means something went wrong in the past. 

“It means maybe in the past, you have to see what you did and maybe to understand that there were some mistakes. Because usually you have to buy players to reinforce your team. But if you send away players on loan you bought in the last two or three years, it means maybe you did something wrong in the past.

“For this reason, we have to pay more attention in the future when we go into the market about the choice of the players. It becomes of fundamental importance if we want to reinforce the quality of the team. Otherwise, when you go to reinforce the quality of your team, you drop the quality of your team.

“We know very well there are many teams ahead of us. To catch up with them, we need time and patience to work hard. Especially in the transfer market, we cannot make big mistakes. Because now there are many teams who started before us and they stay ahead of us. If we want to reduce this gap, the mistakes must be minimal in every aspect. On the pitch, outside the pitch. This is my vision, my thoughts.”