Ex-Manager watch: Antonio Conte

[Johnny J]

What about Kane , what about Son and Lloris did we also hold on to them too long as well? When we let Bale, Modric, Carrick, Berbatov go we were accused of being a selling club.

Did we get bids for Dier, Alli or Moura?

We can debate the particular players but my overall point is that we should have turned over players more, whether they're bad or whether they're good and we could have got an absolute fortune.

We shouldn't care about being accused of being "a selling club". City, Barca, Bayern all sell players. Every big club does.

Kane is probably the one player you'd never sell, a generational talent we couldn't replace.

 

[DiVaio]

Conte cares. The problem is that some of our players don't.

Sorry, but which players doesn't care then?

 

[idontgetit]

If you play negative, grinding football that sucks the enjoyment out of the game and burns players out emotionally then there's not much chance of it working at a club who's mottos are "The game is about glory" and "To dare is to do".

After Pochettino burned out we needed a manager to bring the enjoyment back into the club and for the club to intelligently invest big money into fixing the defence which originally had been the foundation on which Poch had built his success. Instead we brought in two "winners" to try nick some silverware but who play negative, grinding football that sucks the enjoyment out of the game and burns players out emotionally. We failed to fix the defence and still heavily rely on the likes of Dier, Sanchez and Davies while also spending long periods of time with miserable full back options.

To compound that failure to fix the defence, both managers played to our weakness in defence rather than to our strengths in attack. Add in the fans becoming progressively turned off or even hostile to the lack of attacking footy and you get a toxic spiral.

 

[jimmy-jojo]

Basically Antonio criticizes the club for Not having a good footballing strategy. Funny that if they would have, Antonio would have never got the job in the First place as He stands for nothing this Club should be about.

Glory and to dare is to do

Unfortunately, you’re deluded.

A club that has one trophy in 22 years is the complete opposite of glory and To Dare is To Do.

We haven’t been about that since Sugar bought us.

 

[longtimespur]

I want to really thank Conte for this press conference and all that he's said.
The first time since ENIC took control that anyone has had the balls to state what is fundamentally wrong with this FOOTBALL club.!

 

[PLTuck]

Sort of proving my point for me there

Not really. I haven't said that was anyone's ambition. Just that it'd be a step up from where we are under "elite" manager Conte.

 

[danielneeds]

Conte delivering some uncomfortable home truths for this club.

If you think the problem goes when Conte leaves you are very much mistaken!

Does anyone really think that? But when you are making someone one of the best paid coaches in the world, give them the best striking duo the PL has ever seen, back them with almost £250m worth of players in 18 months, and the team gets worse because of his own lack of commitment, then it's not hard to see why everyone wants him gone.

 

[Nebby]

£15m should buy you a little bit of class, humility and maybe even team spirit. Unprofessional

 

[cjbyid]

Paul O’Keefe having a meltdown on Twitter & still claiming Conte won’t be gone till the Summer

I still think Levy won't sack him

 

[yido_number1]

Sorry, but which players doesn't care then?

Any fraud that thinks that's ok.

 

[St José Dominguez]

Whether his football is shit or not he’s completely right in what he’s saying. It’s been an absolute joke in one way or another. Even when we were competing it became a joke by not adding when we needed to and going windows without signings. We’re not a “winning” football club, we stumbled into nearly doing something a few years ago but we have no clue what we’re doing. It’s gonna be the same old shit again and again until there’s massive changes from top to bottom. We need to completely gut the club and rebuild it from scratch cos it’s toxic at the minute.

 

[mpickard2087]

Who are these players though that he claims are selfish and letting down manager after manager after manager?

We got a boatload of new ones for Jose, and the same for Conte. The last two/three years there has been chop and change to about 75-80% of the squad.

People will say it's the Dier/Davies/Sanchez's, or the lingering ghosts of your Winks or Ndombele's, but the three main ones who have been there throughout all this and are the dressing room leaders/seniors are Lloris, Kane, and Son. If there is a continuing problem of culture/attitude they surely have a big part in it.

And actually you know what, you can see that in the performance today. I've skimmed through a few bits on here and straightaway it's the predictable fucking useless Dier and Davies this, fucking useless Perisic and Hojbjerg that...... Go back and watch the second half of that game, it's some of your "star boys" who cause as much of a problem and completely fail to set any standards themselves.

This was another match where when the going started to get tough, Son and Kulu decided to stop running back to help and hung their central midfielders out to dry. Kane lets himself get bullied far too often when the chips are down and in the last 10 mins at least three times put in zero effort to collect a ball that was dropping about a yard away from him, just letting Soton have it to launch another wave of attack on us. Even Romero, in the moments after us going 3-1 up he twice got caught dawdling on the ball putting us under pressure and spent the last 15 mins rampaging about and getting taken out of the game left right and centre and causing issue after issue.

Weaker players might not have the ability, may also have the wrong attitude, and need replacing. Some of our best/established players might well be that ability and even importance wise out on the pitch but if we accept these criticisms of the team as true then they have to be the ones who are also culpable for rotten culture amongst the players.

Conte might not be wrong in what he says.... But he still picks these players who he thinks have a bad attitude and commitment and personality. He probably doesn't help the atmosphere amongst the players by constantly picking his favourites and only certain rotations. And in any case should in no way mitigate against the deficiencies in which he is going about his work in terms of the football, tactics, and whatever else.

 

[Oscar22]

First of all, literally in today interview


You can infer what you want from this but he is saying the manager and the club must take responsibility first, but eventually the players have to take the blame when it’s their fault.

Saying he’s added zero to the club is hyperbole at best, he got a very mediocre team to Top 4 last season but has admittedly fallen a bit short this season. That’s a fair amount more than zero no matter how bad it looked today.

You can downplay his past achievements all you want but Pep spent over a billion at City and he’s still considered one of the best in the world. He spent a bunch at Bayern too and inherited arguably the best Barcelona squad to ever play the game.

Certain managers come with certain requirements, which we knew when we signed Conte. You can be mad about the football on the pitch or the performances but you can’t be angry that he’s a manager that needs players to succeed, it’s who he is and it’s what Levy signed up for.

He mentioned ‘the manager’ for but a moment, he hasn’t mentioned his terrible football, he hasn’t mentioned the defensive cowardly tactics he puts out weekly.

The mediocre squad last season still included a World Cup winning captain, a raft of good international players, our now all time top scorer, the most productive PL pairing in terms of playing together in Kane and Son, there was more than enough to work with.

We’ll never know with Pep as we’ll never see him at a club on a budget, but with pep he spends money and plays attractive football, there’s caveats of course, it’s easy to play nice looking football working with players like Messi.

The football is dire, we’re cowardly in our set up, and all he does is mope about blaming everyone else. We need to move a lot of players on, Levy needs to go, but if you get paid that much as a supposedly elite manager and that is the best you can get out of some of the players we have available, Jesus.

 

[ButchCassidy]

A manager is calling out our rotten chairman, rotten club, and rotten culture.

Something we are ALL aware of.

Which - according to our fanbase on here - makes him the bad guy.

It is pathetic.

Nah, people think he’s the “bad guy” because the only reason he’s calling out those things now is that a critical mass of people have realized he’s failed, badly. It’s beyond nakedly self-serving. Levy should go, the board should go, we’ve already replaced half the squad and probably should do so again - there’s an avalanche of blame to go around but plenty of it can and should fall on Conte.

 

[IamSpurtacus]

Full press conference.

It's hard to argue.

And he's not alone in thinking it - this is from 2018, after Juve beat us 2- 1 at Wembley to knock us out the CL

"Juventus defender Giorgio Chiellini says he knew his team would beat Tottenham because Spurs "always miss something at the end". It's the history of Tottenham. We knew Tottenham have fantastic players and are an amazing side - but they concede many chances every game."

Changing the manager changes what, exactly?

 

[leray]

He said the right things, all right. Shame he had to wait until the end of the season to finally deliver something. Conte out, Levy out.

 

[JCRD]

I want to really thank Conte for this press conference and all that he's said.
The first time since ENIC took control that anyone has had the balls to state what is fundamentally wrong with this FOOTBALL club.!

We all know what is wrong... so we didnt need him


And what do you think, what he said would achieve out of interest? You think Levy is going to go walkies because Conte aired laundry? I

 

[Impspur1]

I mean I can't quite see Levy continuing to employ this man after that

Just a bit…. As much as I agree with most of what he said, he does pick them and the tactics but brilliant resignation letter!

 

[spark7586]

fucking hell, it's actually worse when you see him say it.. full meltdown. Can't argue against it, though.

Fair play to him!

 

[slartibartfast]

If you play negative, grinding football that sucks the enjoyment out of the game and burns players out emotionally then there's not much chance of it working at a club who's mottos are "The game is about glory" and "To dare is to do".

After Pochettino burned out we needed a manager to bring the enjoyment back into the club and for the club to intelligently invest big money into fixing the defence which originally had been the foundation on which Poch had built his success. Instead we brought in two "winners" to try nick some silverware but who play negative, grinding football that sucks the enjoyment out of the game and burns players out emotionally. We failed to fix the defence and still heavily rely on the likes of Dier, Sanchez and Davies while also spending long periods of time with miserable full back options.

To compound that failure to fix the defence, both managers played to our weakness in defence rather than to our strengths in attack. Add in the fans becoming progressively turned off or even hostile to the lack of attacking footy and you get a toxic spiral.

Fantastic post. Bang on.