Last night Tottenham comfirmed that Antonio Conte has left by mutual consent after his most recent outburst last week after the Southampton game. It seems so long ago that this has happened. It was getting to the stage that the trigger had to be pulled. During this time Bayern sacked and appointed a manager and it was getting to the stage where Antonio was due to take training on Tuesday 28th March. When Conte was about to be sacked as Chelsea manager he still turned up and took 5 training sessions. Something that Tottenham did not want to happen. So it had to be either Sunday or Monday that the news came out. Here is the official statement from the club last night.
https://twitter.com/SpursOfficial/status/1640101514973773825?s=20
- SpursOfficial
Source
Surprisingly enough Antonio Conte and Gianluca Conte are the only two staff to leave the club. Stellini and Ryan Mason will now be in charge of Spurs until the end of the season. The statement also was quite short and prompt compared to the Mourinho sacking statement back in 2021. Such was his outbursts the players expected the sacking and hoped it was done before they came back from international duty.
https://twitter.com/OMyles90/status/1640106972824338432?s=20
- OMyles90
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Spurs had been talking to Thomas Tuchel last week before Julian Nagelsmann was sacked abruptly which made Bayern Munich moved fast. Bayern were so swift that they forgot to let Julian know of his sacking. He is rumoured to have found out over the internet. Now if any of you have been wondering why Julian was sacked, you just have to look up Twitter and the answer will be there. I personally don't want to be sued so I will leave you make up your own minds. Julian broke up with his girlfriend this week as well which is strange. So maybe Bayern meant the little faux pas by leaking news of his sacking to the press. The irony is strong in this one. So with Thomas Tuchel out of the picture Tottenham hoped to have secured a manager before Conte was sacked. They looked for Nagelsmann after Poch got sacked but Bayern had secured his signature back then so we are sure to be in for him again. Nagelsmann is good. Very good. He is young and progressive and is a project manager. The only downside is that he is quite mouthy as well and he has been know to have arguments with boards. The bright side is that he plays attacking progressive football.
https://twitter.com/LastWordOnSpurs/status/1640149957553299460?s=20
- LastWordOnSpurs
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Will I miss Conte? No I will not. The football is terrible, We are grinding out results with dismal displays. I would prefer to lose 5 - 4 and go for it rather than go out with a whimper to a poor AC Milan side. Spurs have the Brazil number 9, England record goal scoring captain and South Koreas number 9 all up front. If we can't attack with them there is no point. But on saying that Spurs have the third most goals in the League right now so it wasn't as bad as we think. But the football is painful and the players were tired of it so I am glad he is gone. Give me a Poch or Nagelsmann any day and see how they get on. I would even have Potter take over. No problem at all. Poch is in Japan at the moment on his holiers. Well until last night. Hmmmmmm...
https://twitter.com/Tottenham_Feed/status/1640059166365560833?s=20
- Tottenham_Feed
Source
Meanwhile Levy and Paradici have gone into hiding. Paradici was due to find out whether he will go on trial today but this was postponed and there is a growing sense that he may be also leaving to clear his name in Italy. With this hanging over him he has been very quiet recently. Levy is not one for the limelight so it will be Stellini and Ryan Mason pushed in front of the baying mob to calm things down.
I am getting a bit of grief from the Gunners in the FPL Discord telling me that I was wrong about the transfers in the summer. I did think that Spurs had a good summer transfer window. I still do think that we had a good summer transfer window. I think Richarlison, Bissouma, Spence, Udogee, Romero (Yes he was purchased last summer ) and the January transfer Porro were all excellent signings. Richarlison has been plagued with injuries and even came back from the world cup injured. Any eagle eye viewers could see he was injured against Croatia in the knock out stages but still played. I am not worried about him or Bissouma. They are good enough. Peresic is a disappointment in my book as he has been poor now for the last couple of months. Also the arrival of Peresic has caused Sonny to go off the boil. They just don't get each other. As @talesfrmthecrypt pointed out that Son probably doesn't like being told where to go at any given time. If Sonny thinks then it all goes wrong. He is an instinctful player and Conte could have broke him to a point he lost all his confidence. It will be interesting to see how Sonny does without the little man pointing and shouting.
Stellini has taken charge so will he stick to the Conte blueprint or will he go with a more attacking football. It will be very interesting to see against Everton. I was really impressed with Stellini when he covered for Conte so I am optimistic that we will maintain top 4. We haven't the hardest end to the season either in April so it is doable.
So how do I sum up the Conte era. Well he got us top 4 last year which was a long shot. He left us in 4th place this year so we have a great chance on making Top 4 again. So in theory he did what was asked. Conte was never a cup manager. His record in the Champions League is abysmal and some think he was solely focused on the League. But we learned the win now approach is not a good recipe at Tottenham with Conte and now Mourinho falling by the waste side. Conte and Mourinho neglected our youth development and sent them away. Scarlett, Parrott, Spence and Gil were all sent off on loan in favour of buying a player in the transfer market. Skipp and Sarr only got chances due to injuries and were lucky to get them, The new manager needs to develop these talents instead of looking externally. Scarlett alone is meant to be the next English prodigy. He is plugging away in Ports bloody mouth.
Conte's style was not easy on the eye. at all. To play his wing back system which he would rarely steer away from, meant that the central midfield would be overrun. Opposition teams crowded this area which meant Hojbjerg and Bentancur were going to war every game. When you take one of these two players out through injury then you leave a massive hole for one of the kids to fill. Bentancur's ACL injury was a bigger blow for Conte than it was for the player. I went out to the pub to watch the Champions League Game against AC Milan. 5 Spurs fans. One my dad who is 83. Lives and breathes for Spurs. The AC Milan game made him feel dejected and I was actually sad for him more than anyone and it made me angry and this is when I knew that Conte was not for us. I remember jumping around the pub with him when Poch got Spurs all the way to the Champions League final and I wanted that back. Good football. To dare is to do. It is time we got that back so maybe in a year we might be jumping around that pub one more time before it is too late. The clock is ticking especially in my camp. Whoever we get in needs to hit the ground running.