The Italian banned ketchup and fizzy drinks from the training ground menu during his time at Chelsea and is said to have made similar demands in his first few weeks with Spurs.

Eating and sleeping are valued highly by the experienced 52-year-old coach, who is preparing for the visit of Leeds in the Premier League on Sunday.

Conte said: "It is not only important the training or the game. You have to prepare yourself in the best possible way. I consider sleeping very important, I consider having good nutrition very important because these two aspects bring the player to recover quickly.

"If you have this type of situation in the right way you can recover quickly, you are ready to work, also sometimes to work very hard and also to avoid injuries. To be professional it means to have all of these situations in your mind.

"Obviously I like also to speak about good nutrition. I spoke with the nutritionist. I am going slowly, slowly because now the most important thing is to work very well on the pitch, to give the priority to the physical, tactical and mental aspect.

"For sure we are going step by step. We want to improve every aspect of my players. Usually when I start to work with players maybe at the start someone can't understand something like this but then when they start to understand they don't go away from this road."

The menu changes produced results at Stamford Bridge, with Chelsea winning the Premier League in Conte's first campaign in charge.

And the Italian showed earlier this month he continues to demand the best of those he has worked with - even for his former players who are now retired.

John Terry received a comment from the current Spurs boss on a recent Instagram post that showed a book and two biscuits which read "John only 1 biscuit" along with some emojis.

While Tottenham players may be careful over any pictures they post on social media which contain food, Conte has insisted one way or another he will know if they are following his rules.

Australian Associated Press