Ex-Manager watch: Antonio Conte

Any news on if he is taking training today or just ‘observing’ again. You’d assume we’ll need to get his back room staff in place also before any progress can really start.

CantSmileWithoutYou said:

You really are a hater, A&C.

We need more money to be competitive - Levy builds multifunctional, world class Super Stadium as the catalyst

We need better Facilities - Levy builds state-of-the-art Training facilities, now known world over and a away camp for many top national sides and their players.

We need a top manager - appoints one of the top 5 coaches in the world.

We need to show ambition - see all three points above.

We need to spend money - spends £500m on players in last 5 years whilst building new stadium.

I know you have information coming in from all angles regarding Levy, but please, tell me what else he has to do to convince you.

Click to expand...

I used to be a full blown BSoDL, then with the Jose debacle and the Super league, the absolute mess of the summer I quite frankly had enough. All the points you raise are all good points and I agree. But the problem with Levy is he seems to have full blown supporters and people who despise him. Yes this appointment is something we that will lift us, the backing he is giving Paraciti is promising and could finally look like he will take a step back. I will monitor the situation and see how it goes.

fishhhandaricecake said:

I don't think its about convincing its more that he's got so many black marks against him over the years its very hard to forgive and forget all of those.

Click to expand...

I'd love him to name and shame them then. Let's see which is the more conclusive list, Pros vs Cons.

"Tottenham’s players were said to be “buzzing” by the end of Tuesday’s training session, despite also being physically tired, with many immediately struck by Conte’s aura."

Interesting in Conte's video the first 2 lines were about his football philosophy being wanting to play good attractive football with passion and intensity. One one hand you could say it is a PR spin which it inevitably is but on the other hand at least the club are hearing us and trying to at least say the right things.

Tbh Conte is no Guardiola but his teams play perfectly nice football, they create chances, they play with intensity and organisation, they score a decent amount of goals, sure occasionally they will sit back and counter like his Chelsea team did in a key game away to Man,City the year they won the title under him but you can't have everything and I've always said it is a balance. Conte is a top 4/5 manager in the WORLD! If 'one' can't get excited about this appointment then you may as well stop bothering.

COYS

wiggo24 said:

Tottenham players 'buzzing' after Antonio Conte's first training session

The Italian was able to address his players and made it clear that he expects them to give everything in training and in games

www.telegraph.co.uk

"Tottenham’s players were said to be “buzzing” by the end of Tuesday’s training session, despite also being physically tired, with many immediately struck by Conte’s aura."

Click to expand...

I bet Conte's aura struck Winks and he'll be off sick for a few weeks.

Saturday evening THFC feeling all like





This morning THFC feeling all like

McFlash said:

That, my friend, is some of the best info you've ever posted!
I've always appreciated what Levy and Enic have done for us as a club but the big issue was Levy's lack of football knowledge.
To hear that he's finally leaving it to the professionals, while he concentrates on what he's good at, is possibly the best news ever.

Levy deals with the business side, actual proper football people deal with the football. Happy days.

Click to expand...

It's debateable how much of that is his choice though imo. I believe(and I don't know for a a fact) he's not had too much choice in the matter, but that's just my opinion.

Donki said:

I used to be a full blown BSoDL, then with the Jose debacle and the Super league, the absolute mess of the summer I quite frankly had enough. All the points you raise are all good points and I agree. But the problem with Levy is he seems to have full blown supporters and people who despise him. Yes this appointment is something we that will lift us, the backing he is giving Paraciti is promising and could finally look like he will take a step back. I will monitor the situation and see how it goes.

Click to expand...

Fair enough.

I'm really not and never have been a BSoDL. But I look round at some of the other owners in the PL, and some in our past, like Sugar and Scholar and I think there a many, many worse ones, including the state or oil run clubs, all of which I am happy we are not owned by any of them.

fishhhandaricecake said:

Interesting in Conte's video the first 2 lines were about his football philosophy being wanting to play good attractive football with passion and intensity. One one hand you could say it is a PR spin which it inevitably is but on the other hand at least the club are hearing us and trying to at least say the right things.

Tbh Conte is no Guardiola but his teams play perfectly nice football, they create chances, they play with intensity and organisation, they score a decent amount of goals, sure occasionally they will sit back and counter like his Chelsea team did in a key game away to Man,City the year they won the title under him but you can't have everything and I've always said it is a balance. Conte is a top 4/5 manager in the WORLD! If 'one' can't get excited about this appointment then you may as well stop bothering.

COYS

Click to expand...

I'm quite happy to see us play sometimes counter attacking or front foot football depending on the circumstances.
Pep plays all out attacking game but a few times now we have picked his team off, good organisation and balance is what we need with the players all understanding what is required of them.

It's really incredible how quickly things can change, went from being completely disconnected with the club to refreshing here all the time and watching loads of Conte videos and buzzing for a game against Vittesse ffs

wiggo24 said:

Tottenham players 'buzzing' after Antonio Conte's first training session

The Italian was able to address his players and made it clear that he expects them to give everything in training and in games

www.telegraph.co.uk

"Tottenham’s players were said to be “buzzing” by the end of Tuesday’s training session, despite also being physically tired, with many immediately struck by Conte’s aura."

Click to expand...

I hope a few ears were buzzing and a few were struck by objects hurled at them.

9

bubble07 said:

Have to agree. You don't invest 1.2bn in the stadium without ambition even if ENIC are safeguarding their investment

Click to expand...

ENIC didn't invest 1.2 bn, they used the clubs income plus loans
I doubt ENIC have spent more than 140m of their own money, and are now sitting on a 2bn plus asset
It's fantastic they have got Conte in, and all credit to them for that.
It will be fascinating to see how they finance any excess spending this financial year. More loans, equity injection, who knows. I look forward to how this is going to work
Once again though massive congratulations to them for getting in what I hope will be our best manager since Billy Nick
Would even take best manager since Poch, as long as he wins something and gets us back as a top 6 side ?

spids said:

I am intrigued by this. Whilst we all want Joe Lewis to be more of a benefactor, I would imagine it is not straight forward even if he wanted to be. FFP means that you cannot just inject significant money into a club. However, Man C, Chelsea, and soon to be Newcastle, obviously do this, and Leicester, and Villa to a lesser extent. I wonder how it works. The owner cannot just transfer £100M into the clubs bank account. Is it through issuing more shares, contrived sponsorship deals, underwriting loans that are never paid back or interest free? Would love to know how the different clubs approach this but I guess we'll never find out.

Click to expand...

In my view, notwithstanding Trix being far closer to the action than I am, the idea that Joe Lewis got involved to this extent, by-passing not just Daniel Levy but the Board of the Club, doesn't make much sense.
In my view, the reason that Conte has agreed to come to the Club now, but didn't a few months ago, is all to do with the financial health of the the Club having improved drastically but progressively since May, without Lewis's monetary intervention.
I think this also affected the Kane transfer situation.
At the end of last season the Club was in a dire financial situation. It had generated no income for over a year, with money just starting to trickle in from small crowds, but with no guarantee that this would continue if the Government decided to put the Covid brakes back on. It had a massive short term £175 million loan due for repayment in about a year with no means of funding it. It had tried to mitigate this massive problem both by use of the Covid furlough scheme and by a massive game changing investment from the ESL, but had had to backtrack on both of these measures by massive "holier than thou" pressure both from the media and the louder element of Tottenham fans.
Thus the Club was in a financial mess through no fault of its own. It was Covid induced and media worsened.
With regard to Kane and Manchester City, this situation gave them the idea that a transfer for peanuts would be successful, which is why, in my view, Kane was primed to let slip in the infamous Neville interview that he thought, to Neville's incredulity, that Tottenham would accept £100 million for him, and that in the end it was his, Kane's decision and he wanted his transfer sorted by the start of the Euros. They thought the Club had no alternative.
But the Club board had other ideas. A long term loan of £250 million with a low fixed rate interest was negotiated, which was a brilliant coup, a game changer, for which ENIC, Danlel Levy, Matthew Collecott and others have received nowhere near the praise they deserved. In my view this changed the future outlook of the Club and its benefit can't be underestimated.
This allowed the Club to play hardball on the Kane transfer, which was something neither Kane nor Manchester City had budgeted for.
It also allowed the quest to find a new head coach to include world-class personnel, including Conte, with more hope of success.
At this time there was a gradual relaxing of Covid restrictions with full grounds a distinct, though possibly temporary, possibility.
Thus the Club would have been able to provide a tempting probable future transfer capability. My suspicion is that Conte wanted more for the summer than the Club felt able to provide since if a further Covid shutdown had been implemented the Club would have been back to square one with regard to no income. So they had to call a halt to the Conte negotiations and go for less palatable options, on a wing and a prayer to Espirito Santo. In my view the heckling from the sidelines (and I mean mainly the media) meant that the search for a new head coach become unnecessarily difficult after the Conte deal temporarily collapsed.
During the last three months, income has only been limited by the entertainment on offer, which has still meant 50,000-odd crowds in other than the secondary competitions, plus lucrative use of the ground for NFL and World Championship boxing. Fingers crossed this income flow will continue, and this seems more and more likely as far as Covid restrictions are concerned. This has meant that the prospect of continuing good profits and funds availability for the Club is far more likely.
With the less than impressive performances on the pitch and their effect on crowds mitigating the financial improvement at the Club, it was always likely that Nuno Espirito Santo would be sacked before long. My suspicion is that Fabio Paratici kept up a constant dialogue with Antonio Conte during this time, as Conte was clearly Paratici's first choice, and that Conte had been impressed enough with the Club's stated vision and strategy to be prepared to join the Club in the summer, if available funds had met his requirements.
Thus when Nuno was sacked , Antonio agreed not to leave us all on our ownio in lightning quick time.
Others may disagree with my analysis, but I'd suggest that it is more plausible than Joe Lewis changing, as far as Tottenham Hotspur are concerned, the habits of two decades.
However, time may prove me wrong.

Trix said:

So do you honestly believe Levy/Enic don't care if we win things, and are content to just take part?

Click to expand...

I think they want to win things and would be happy if we did. But I also think the way they have gone about it makes it very clear that they are happy to be competing and if a trophy comes our way, lovely, but they haven’t pushed for it by going that extra mile when it was needed. I think that’s obvious.

Conte is a good start to putting that right but forgive me if I don’t start fist pumping just yet. It’s going to take a lot more to convince me that this leopard has changed it’s spots.

But I am a lot more hopeful.

If my failure to run around claiming the slate is clean just yet, after finally getting one thing right makes me a ‘hater’ then I guess that’s what I am

teenageYIDDO said:

View attachment 99224

Click to expand...

Dakes said:

Seems odd with Levy being such a smart man.

Click to expand...

Not sure if that is sarcasm or not lol but being smart doesn't mean you're football smart. Harry Redknapp certainly isn't smart but he knows a heck of a lot more about judging football players and strategies etc than Levy.

Levy is a glorified CFO, you're right he is smart but as ITK and other reports have said before he has always been far too involved in the football side thinking he knows best or listening to poor advice from people who think they know best, both of those have led to a mish mash at times non-existent strategy and poor signings and manager hires and poor decisions on when to sell certain players and when to pay that little bit extra for the right player.

Paratici for example was quoted saying that sometimes it is worth paying for example £5million extra for a player to ensure you get them if you're confident they're the right one to get, Levy however see's the players more as assets and commodities and sees the value's of them rather than seeing the overall football picture and how it fits together.

I've been so frustrated over the years because if say 10 years ago Levy had stepped away from the football side and hired a good DofF and scouting set-up and manager who together created a consistent philosophy I think that would've been the difference between us getting over the line for a few more trophies, fan satisfaction would be much higher which would be great all round.

The other gripes with Levy are just bad PR moves which we could've avoided or handled better but these are the types of things which add up and add up which eventually piss a lot of the fanbase off:
-Sacking very well liked manager Martin Jol essentially during a game (could've been handled much better for such a well-liked figure who'd done a lot of good for us moving us up the table)
-Strongly considered moving us to Stratford to the Olympic Stadium, that would've killed the club
-Furloughed the staff
-ESL (I know some would argue we didn't want to be left behind but the whole concept was shocking and totally against the spirit of our game)
-Broken promises, saying one thing in a statement then doing the exact opposite (lack of trust)

Anyway hopefully onwards and upwards from now on as it would be great if we can all just pull together in the right direction, get behind the team and manager and players, leave the protests etc alone and build a positive momentum.

Archibald&Crooks said:

I think they want to win things and would be happy if we did. But I also think the way they have gone about it makes it very clear that they are happy to be competing and if a trophy comes our way, lovely, but they haven’t pushed for it by going that extra mile when it was needed. I think that’s obvious.

Conte is a good start to putting that right but forgive me if I don’t start fist pumping just yet. It’s going to take a lot more to convince me that this leopard has changed it’s spots.

But I am a lot more hopeful.

If my failure to run around claiming the slate is clean just yet, after finally getting one thing right makes me a ‘hater’ then I guess that’s what I am

Click to expand...

Tbh My only issue with your post that I quoted was the "NO" to the original question. The part where you say it's only the first step, and it certainly isn't a clean slate I completely agree with.

Trix said:

There is no reason for Levy to leave his position as chairman. He's as good as they come as far as the commercial dealings are concerned. He's been brilliant throughout covid etc as far as the financials etc are concerned. He's just awful at the football side of things. If he Leaves that to FP and Conte that will be perfect imo. All Levy needs to do is set out a clear remit, make sure he stays within the budget given, and then back the fuck away.

Click to expand...

I see Levy has given up his office at the training ground. He’s obviously got the message.
That stadium is his pride and joy, must have been gutted at what happened last Saturday.