Tottenham’s Antonio Conte conundrum: What the pundits are saying after his explosive rant

Antonio Conte’s explosive outburst after Tottenham’s 3-3 draw at Southampton became a hot topic among Premier League pundits on Saturday, as Jamie Carragher and former Spurs midfielder Jamie O’Hara claimed that the Italian spoke in hopes of losing his job in North London.

Furious at his team’s second-half capitulation, in which Spurs squandered a two-goal lead over bottom clubs in the Premier League, Conte called his players “selfish” and accused them of lacking “fire in the eyes” in a derogatory comment. rant after the game.

The Italian manager, who saw Spurs fall out of the FA Cup and Champions League earlier this month, is expected to leave the club when his contract expires at the end of the season, although several Premier League insiders feel that his risky tirade was simply an attempt to hasten his inevitable departure.

Following Spurs’ disappointing draw at St Mary’s, which left the north London outfit just two points ahead of Newcastle in the top four, Carragher tweeted: “Conte wants to be sacked in this international break.” The Spurs should just put him out of his misery and do it tonight.’

His divisive social media post was quickly dismissed by Gary Neville, who simply dismissed the suggestion with a handful of laughing emojis, taking issue with the notion that Conte was actively seeking the sack.

The Manchester United legend also responded to a fan’s tweet on Saturday, which reminded him of the slack Carragher and Micah Richards used to give for not wanting Conte at Old Trafford a few seasons ago.

When asked if he remembered the taunts, Neville replied, “Oh yeah, yeah.”

Continuing his tit-for-tat on social media with Neville, Carragher replied: “Yeah, you’d rather have stayed with the series winner Ole (Gunnar Solskjaer)! So you wanted Pochettino, not Erik ten Hag. I told you Erik ten Hag was the best option, but you wouldn’t listen.

Elsewhere, former Wales captain Ashley Williams and former Premier League striker Dion Dublin had their say on Conte’s epic tirade.

While carrying out his pundit duties on Match of the Day, Williams said: “It would be interesting to hear the conversation in the dressing room – did he say the same thing to the players’ faces or did he come out afterwards?

He’s had enough, and a lot of the things he says most people would agree with. It’s the way she says it. What I didn’t like is that he said that this has nothing to do with me, it’s with everyone else. But it can affect things on the field.

Although Williams agreed with the points Conte was raising and understood why the Italian made his outburst public, Dublin urged that he himself would have been infuriated by the manager’s comments, if he were still a Premier League star.

‘[If I’m a player], I’m going to have to pull him. You’d have to go in and say, “Say it to my face, don’t go and do it in public.”

“I think his points have come out of pure anger and passion. Doing it in public is not the right way to go.

Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy now has a big decision to make during the international break, with Spurs just one mistake away from losing their lead in the top four race.

Newcastle, who claimed a last-gasp win at Nottingham Forest thanks to an Alexander Isak stoppage-time penalty on Friday, have closed the gap to just two points with two games in hand over the northern outfit. London.

Meanwhile, Liverpool, Brighton and Brentford will feel there is a long shot of qualifying for the Champions League next season, particularly with Tottenham proving inconsistent form under Conte.

Gabby Agbonlahor proposed that Levy’s best option would be to sack Conte immediately, even if it means handing over the baton to a youth coach rather than bringing in a full-time replacement.

“The best thing Spurs can do now is get rid of Conte. Even if you give him to the Under-23 coach until the end of the season. Put the players aside again and fight for the top four. It doesn’t make sense that the coach be yours now,’ he told talkSPORT on Saturday.

Come Monday morning, there will be friction with some of the players. We also saw what happened to Richarlison. If I were the Spurs now, I would just fire him. He wants to leave, it’s not working out and staying could cost Spurs the top four.

For his part, O’Hara, who was at Tottenham in 2008 when the club last won a trophy (the League Cup), does not disagree with Conte’s opinion about the lack of passion and desire of the Spurs, but urged that he can not support a coach. slaughtering his own team.

Conte’s criticism of the club’s culture, which directly ties to Levy at the top, also didn’t sit well with the former midfielder in terms of how Spurs play on the pitch.

He told talkSPORT: ‘Daniel Levy doesn’t pick the team, Daniel Levy doesn’t instill a mentality in the players, Daniel Levy doesn’t give Harry Kane much rest in an FA Cup, Daniel Levy doesn’t play a 3-4-3 formation.

I do not disagree with the criticism of Levy and I have said it before about moving the club forward, it has not helped, it has not brought in the best players, but Conte’s comments are not correct.

I don’t disagree with the comments about passion, the desire to win, the mentality of the players, but it’s how he said it, where he said it and when.

“I can’t get behind a coach who slaughters his team when an international break is coming up and is basically saying to Levy ‘I beg you to fire me’.”

Finally, Jamie Redknapp was willing to present his views on Tottenham’s Conte conundrum.

That is the emotion of man. Right now he’s been brought into a situation with his contract situation where it looks like at the end of the year he probably won’t be there,” the former Tottenham midfielder said.

‘It seems that his position has almost become a bit untenable. I really don’t see where this goes from here. I said it at the beginning of the year, it seemed like I was talking to get out of work. I wouldn’t be surprised if Tottenham fired their managers before the cup finals.

‘When you start highlighting players, that’s a sure way to lose that locker room, I don’t see that one. He’s talking mainly about the owners, the president hasn’t won a trophy, a lot of great managers but they haven’t won anything.

“He probably feels that as long as they’re in charge, they’re ever going to buy the players you need.” I thought that he might be the first person to get the keys to the kingdom and that he could buy all the players he wanted.

‘There have been many players who have been forced into it. He has a period of two, three years. In that period, even he feels that he can’t win at Tottenham and that’s a sorry state.”