Tottenham boss Antonio Conte believes that his side have made improvements compared to last season.
Spurs finished in the top four last term, but are adrift of those places at present.
However, Conte believes that his coaching staff have made positive changes behind the scenes in that time.
"If I have to analyse what happened before, compared to last season, we implemented football knowledge, the tactical aspect and also the players after one year and a half, there is more connection between them," said the Spurs boss.
"But we have to pay attention, not only to improve one side, don't lose what we created last season, the solidity, the desire to defend the result, the desire to win duels and don't lose the nastiness.
"In football, you can be really good but if you are not strong into the pitch in every moment then you can risk losing, but I have a group of players who are intelligent, they know the situation much better than me. They know they have conceded a lot of goals, many goals for a team like Tottenham and they know we have to try to improve and there's only one way: to work, to stay together and be strong.
"I always use a word. A team that wants to win, to be stable has to be a resilient team. We have to show in every game, to be resilient and this is not simple but I think this is the key. Especially in our season, in this type of situation when you have conceded 21 goals in the last ten games."
He added: "You know that every single player has their own characteristic. In this situation, it's my task to try to improve this aspect. Sometimes you are good, sometimes you are not so good. Maybe I was good to improve football knowledges, (the) tactical aspect and offensive situation. Maybe I was not so good to transfer this [nastiness] to my players.
"Every single player has their own characteristic. The most important thing is when you do a sport of a team, then you have to try to put all these characteristics inside one box and then to create the right mix to have everything. This is not a topic for one player or another player. When I speak, I speak always about the team.
"We attack with all the team and defend with all the team. For this reason, I think we have to try to improve in this aspect altogether with humility and to find again the nasty that last season we showed many times. Many times we won games fighting a lot, suffering a lot, maybe sometimes we didn't deserve it but at the end we won. And at the end, we finished fourth. I think this is very simple."
