Why Antonio Conte can’t pin Tottenham’s downfall entirely on the club and his players 

Stay out of the limelight or raise some jolly hell. With his inevitable departure from Spurs the worst kept secret in football, Antonio Conte had two options as to how to approach the divorce from him. And the Italian has never liked half measures.

Daniel Levy knew exactly who he married in 2021. Conte came to Tottenham as a serial winner, both abroad and in the Premier League, and Spurs were in desperate need of trophies. He needed an elite coach to convince Harry Kane to stay and he had to put the fans to one side again after the disastrous appointment of Nuno Espirito Santo. There is a good chance that he will make the same mistake again.

But Conte’s arrival was not without its dangers. Levy knew that he was impulsive with the media and stubborn in his tactical approach. If anyone was going to delve into Tottenham’s problems and expose them to the world, it was Conte.

After Spurs squandered their two-goal lead to draw 3-3 against Southampton, the manager had reached the end of his rope, out of solutions and out of patience.

Lamenting the ‘selfishness’ of his players and the defeatist mentality of the club, Conte proposed that losing was simply part of Tottenham’s DNA, after he led the north London side to another trophy-less season.

There is certainly some truth in the Italian’s claims. José Mourinho, who led Manchester United to the Europa League during their barren trophy-less spell and has since won the Europa Conference League with Roma, failed to lift any trophies during his spell at Tottenham.

Even during the glory years under Mauricio Pochettino, Spurs squandered countless trophy opportunities, coming up short in the 2015-16 title run against Leicester, the 2015 League Cup final against Chelsea and the 2015 League Cup final against Chelsea. the 2019 Champions League against Liverpool.

Another narrative seeping through the cracks at Tottenham is that Conte has not been supported in the transfer market. It’s a tough sell, considering Levy has shelled out an estimated £235.8m in transfer fees alone since 2021, but not all of the players were lured in by the manager’s wishes. Conte urged that it was ‘the club’s decision’ to sign Djed Spence, for example, last summer.

The 53-year-old may have elite clubs across Europe lining up to sign him once he leaves Tottenham, but that won’t change the fact that Conte made a host of avoidable mistakes during his north London tenure.

His first mistake, in many ways, was not understanding the fragility of Tottenham when he came to power. Beaten and bruised after unsuccessful spells by Mourinho and Santo, Spurs needed encouragement rather than tough love. His critical character from the first moment made the club feel further removed from its dream of lifting a trophy.

Just three months after taking office, Conte publicly pointed the finger at his players after their lackluster 1-0 defeat against Burnley. He opened up about the size of the job he faced, saying Spurs’ standards had “gone down a lot” in recent years and describing them as an “average” team.

‘If players want to improve, it’s important that they always listen to the truth. My players know very well that I always tell them the truth because with the truth you can improve. With good lies, you don’t have long to live,’ he said.

Quite frankly, apart from a few anomalies like Kane, Dejan Kulusevski and Cristian Romero, his public outbursts, while true, have hampered his team’s form and confidence, with a sincere lack of players in terms of their development.

Jump over to the red side of North London, and Arsenal’s young stars have become a star-studded team of title hunters, thanks in no small part to Mikel Arteta’s low-key approach to man management.

Conte publicly doubting his chances of success at Tottenham early on set the stage for failure, and he can’t have helped matters by continuing to riddle the media about his long-term future. His cryptic nature with the press continued to plague the team and irritate former Spurs stars like Jamie Redknapp, who criticized his approach in January.

Had Conte quietly withdrawn from north London and chosen not to attack the club publicly, few would have blamed him for dropping his high standards this season. The coach has endured a torrid year of emotional turmoil, following the deaths of his close friends Gianluca Vialli, Gian Piero Ventrone and Sinisa Mihajlovic, all of whom have passed away in the last 12 months.

Associate the pain with his absence to undergo gallbladder surgery last month and it’s no wonder Tottenham have missed out on two major tournaments in recent weeks.

Rather than accept the impact of these external factors, however big or small, Conte opted to hold his players fully accountable, once again using the media as an awkward outlet for feedback to the dressing room.

Tottenham fans have yet to hear Conte offer an honest, self-reflective assessment of his own shortcomings after a disappointing result.

Not once did the Italian take responsibility for benching Kane against Sheffield United, who are now just two wins away from FA Cup glory. While it may have been his assistant Cristian Stellini on the touchline, the decision to go without his best striker was certainly Conte’s.

Not once has he taken responsibility for Tottenham’s woeful performance in their fatal 0-0 Champions League draw against AC Milan.

According to serial winner Carlo Ancelotti, who led Real Madrid to LaLiga and Champions League glory last season, tactical adaptability is the most important aspect of being a head coach. He said it very early in his managerial career.

Unlike Conte, who has rigidly deployed a 3-4-3 in favor of pragmatism and discipline at elite clubs, Ancelotti has opted for a more malleable approach, looking at the big picture rather than the individual shape of his formation. .

At Paris Saint-Germain, he preferred a 4-3-3 to better suit his players. During his first spell at the Bernabéu, he opted to change his 4-2-3-1 formation to a 4-4-2, feeling they needed more firepower up front.

When he arrived at Goodison Park, Ancelotti identified that Everton would be too open in a 4-3-3 or 4-4-2, so he switched to a five in defence, using a solid base to build from behind.

And finally, upon his return to Real, the coach soon understood that the 4-4-2 was no longer the most optimal formation and he switched to a fluid 4-3-3 to get the best out of the star Vinicius Junior. Center forward Karim Benzema maintains form in attack, while the Brazilian has freedom to move.

Conte, unfortunately for Tottenham, is the opposite. He rarely plays to his individual strengths, he expects players to adapt to his structure and system.

Take last season’s Golden Boot winner Son Heung-min, whose form has fallen off a cliff under Conte this season, as an example.

The South Korean has struggled since the arrival of Ivan Perisic, a signing the former Inter manager was desperate to land last summer.

When Conte hit the mark with his 4-3-3 at Chelsea, Eden Hazard excelled in the swing and enjoyed receiving the ball at his feet. The midfield would be tasked with launching short passes to Hazard, while Marcos Alonso and Victor Moses would loiter forward from the flanks.

There’s no denying that Son’s best asset as a striker is running behind. One need only look at Tottenham’s demolition of Southampton in 2020, when Son scored four goals by punching through the high line of the home team’s defence.

Since Perisic’s arrival, the Croat has taken a more attacking role from left-back than Ben Davies and Danny Rose before him, stretching the field with runs from behind from the left wing as Alonso used to do at Chelsea.

However, rather than play on Son’s strengths and change his tactics, Conte has stuck to his beliefs, possibly to the detriment of his team.

If the ‘Tottenham story’ is one of weak-minded players and misguided government, as the Italian’s explosive tirade would like to suggest, the ‘Conte story’ is one of headstrong rigidity.