Tottenham boss Antonio Conte has warned it will take more than one transfer window to reach the Premier League elite.

Manchester City offered a fresh statement of intent ahead of next season by announcing the £54m signing of Erling Haaland yesterday, and Conte believes every club wanting to win the title will need to spend significantly in the off-season.

But he added that Spurs should not expect to join the elite after one transfer window, regardless of their spending, and said they also need "patience and time" to match their Premier League rivals.

"Every club in England that wants to compete to win the title has to invest important money," he said. "Not only Tottenham.

"You can organise your team, give your players every type of information, train well and take care of the details but in the end you need to have important players because top players bring you to win.

"In the last season, City bought [Jack] Grealish for £100m. Chelsea, [Romelu] Lukaku for £100m. And United, [Jadon] Sancho, [Raphael] Varane and [Cristiano] Ronaldo.

"If the top teams, to improve themselves, spent a lot of money, you have to think that for a team that starts a bit lower than the others, how much do they have to spend to be competitive? But then, I'm agreed with Pep [Guardiola] when he said recently that money is not the only important thing.

"To win the title, Tottenham needs time, patience and then to go step by step," he added. "I think you have just started this path and the others are at the end of this path. They built a solid foundation and then can add one or two players to improve their squad.

“I think now we are at the start of this path and we need more time. You can't think you can change the situation in one transfer market or one season. For this reason, time and patience."