Tottenham Hotspur assistant boss felt it was only a matter of time against Preston North End in FA Cup win

Usually after the game, the manager would address the media and do the talking but not on this occasion. Instead, former Chelsea, Juventus, Inter Milan and Italy boss Antonio Conte delegated that duty to his assistant, Cristian Stellini.

The pair had seen their side comfortably beat North End in the end, although the two sides were level at the break. PNE didn’t really threaten Tottenham throughout but it still took a moment of magic from forward Heung-Min Son to find the opener. He whipped the ball into the bottom corner from distance before doing the same again from closer range.

Arnaut Danjuma came off the bench for his Spurs debut and added a third goal in the final minutes of the game.

“We are happy because we started the game how we expected from the team,” Stellini said. “We made some changes and nothing changed from the last performance so we have to be happy for that.

"We created a comfortable second half because we played a great first half. We moved the ball quickly, we only had to wait for the right moment to find a solution like Son did. It was a great performance.

"He's a top player, he only needs to wait for the right moment to feel comfortable and to find the space to attack and play 1v1 often.

"This evening was a good game for him. We can feel from Son that he steps up without Harry, he's the most important striker for us. We played Perisic out of his normal position so for Son it was important to find a way to score to get the team to win.”

North End were able to hang on in the game for the first 50 minutes, until Son’s special strike. They had frustrated the Premier League outfit to shots from range, never really getting broken down aside from a few fortunate ricochets that landed their way after a blocked shot.

That was the idea for PNE, to frustrate and remain hard to score against, although giving Son time – and a few sighters before – within range was asking for trouble.

Stellini was complimentary of PNE though, but felt his side would find their advantage the longer the game wore on.

He said: “We started very well and our pace in the game was high. We allowed them only to try to find the ball, to try to take the ball. They defended well in the first half but they ran a lot and our three at the back never allowed them to counter attack in the first half. It was a good first half and then the difference in the second half was Son. He found the target that created comfort.

"We had energy and they had problems because they ran a lot in the first half. It's not easy when you play against a team like us, we're different. You have to show that difference, we asked our players to follow the last game against Fulham and they did.”