Tottenham Hotspurs has been a solid side in previous years, attracting great talent on the pitch and coaches who were able to extract the best out of their players, especially Maurizio Pochettino. The Argentinian coach was able to get his side to play Champions League football on a regular basis at his last full season with the club, when he guided them to a Champions League Final against Liverpool. Last season, Antonio Conte managed to power his side to fourth place at the expense of their North London rivals, Arsenal. The qualification to the Champions League football was hailed as a miracle by the Italian manager when he took over.
During this blog, we are going to discuss the dynamics between the club and Antonio Conte and what the future holds for both parties. Make sure to visit the LV BET Sports Blog to get more insights about the Premier League, transfer news and, most importantly, the best betting tips.
Early stages of the relationship
Antonio Conte was hired to succeed Nuno Espirito Santo, who only occupied the role for three months. The following day the Italian took over as manager of Tottenham Hotspurs on an 18-month contract with the option for a further year. At this moment in time, we are approaching the end of that 18-month contract, but things are not as well as both parties would have hoped to be. After the successful first season, Antonio Conte wanted more reinforcements to his squad during the summer transfer window in order to build on the momentum of Champions League football.
Daniel Levy, who is the chairperson at Spurs, is a very passionate guy, but he does not like spending enormous amounts of money on big-name players. Levy’s stance is not common when Antonio Contre takes over a team – as happened with Chelsea and Inter when he won the league for the first time of asking.
Antonio Conte signings at Spurs
A manager can be judged by the signings that he makes and the style of football being played on the pitch. So let’s take a look at the signings done so far:
Richarlison – £50m + £10m add-ons
Fraser Forster – Free Transfer
Ivan Perisic – Free Transfer
Yves Bissouma – £21.5m
Clement Lenglet – Loan
Djed Spence – £13m
Destiny Udogie – €20m
Romero – £41m
Out of all transfers made, the only players that feature in the starting lineup regularly are Ivan Perisic, Romero and Richarlison, but he is at the moment ruled out due to injury. Romero is the main man in the heart of the Spurs defence, while Richarlison is yet to score a Premier League goal. Djed Spence was signed to be cultivated as a future starter, and he is now being sent on loan with Rennes to play more regular football. Fraser Forster was signed as a back up for Hugo Lloris, who is not playing well ever since his return from the Qatar World Cup with France. Yves Bissouma is slowly making his way into the team, whilst Clement Lenglet is deemed not good enough for the Premier League and was given a chance to play in cup matches.
It’s easy to see that Antonio Conte is not getting spoilt with transfers, and he has to make do with Eric Dier in defence with no other option to change things up. The Italian manager is a very passionate individual and he is well known for his antics on the sidelines – this is slowly dissipating from his persona at Spurs as of late. At the beginning of the season, the team performed well, securing their place within the top four in the Premier League, but consecutive defeats saw them drop down and at the time of writing are three points behind Manchester United at fourth with an extra game played – the gap could be extended to eight. Their next game is against Manchester City, a very tough team to beat, as they found out a couple of weeks ago when they lost 4-2 at the Etihad Stadium.
Football on the pitch
The other aspect of a manager is the way he sets up his team and the way they play on the pitch. During the pre-season, Antonio Conte made his feelings known that the fitness levels of his players weren’t up to standard. A lot of images emerged from pre-season where players visibly struggled to cope with the drills – especially Matt Doherty and Harry Kane.
In the first half of the season (before the World Cup), Spurs got a substantial number of points on the board but the results rarely mirrored the performance on the pitch. In most of the games they either came back from a losing position, or else, they saw out the game to win by a narrow margin. A lot can be said about on the manager and how he sets up but Conte has two underperforming players in Richarlison and Son, who is yet to rediscover last season’s form.
He is a proven winner, winning the Premier League with Chelsea for the first time of asking and even with Inter Milan, although he was heavily backed by transfers. Getting into the Champions League last season was a great achievement, but as we have seen this season, although it has only gone half distance, the squad looks more fragile, and the progress seems to be stunted.
Contract
A huge question mark surrounds Antonio Conte and Spurs as the contract he has currently takes him to the end of this season, with the club able to extend his stay for an extra year. Should Conte not renew the contract, it’s havoc once again at Spurs as they need to find another coach, and if the new manager doesn’t play the same style of football or want new players to come through the door, that will take Spurs more time to build up a squad worthy of competing in the Premier League and Champions League. The decision lies with Conte to make up his mind if he wants to stay or not but Daniel Levy plays a pivotal role in the talks as he needs to give some guarantee that more investments will follow to compete at the top of the table.
As we have seen with Manchester United and Erik ten Hag, a couple of key signings managed to get Old Trafford hopeful and that is something that, by time, Conte is losing, as well as the fans’ enthusiasm. This season, the only chance of getting their hands on a title is the Champions League but they are miles off the quality of fellow Premier League rivals Manchester City, PSG or Bayern Munich. So they have to once again be content with a trophyless season. The only hope was that of winning the Carabao Cup was in 2021 but they sacked Jose Mourinho just before the Carabao Cup final, which took the winds out of their sails.