Ex-Manager watch: Antonio Conte

[Clockspur]

I wasn't happy with the summer window but sometimes on here I feel like if you're negative you get overun so it isn't worth it

It was a typical ENIC window in that we sort of backed him but actually we didn't.

It was a classic ENIC window mate, Richarlison on a pay structure that suited us after Kenwright and Levy had a nice dinner together.

Bissouma at a favourable price from Levy’s best mates at Brighton.

Udogie - not for now though

Spence - Classic Levy youth punt even though the manager doesn’t want him

Finished off with some freebies.

No wing backs the manager actually wants even though they are integral to the managers system. The same good for nothing CB options.

Always half hearted with Levy

 

[parklane yid]

This is a decent post asking the right questions that's worth replying to.

You are right in that Conte has been backed to a decent degree. I do believe we could and should have done more in the Summer especially when we had pulled the £150mil to do just that. The issue is that it was only the starting point. AC was happy with it because he was expecting the backing to keep coming but now Levy has decided he doesn't want to keep going in this direction. Last season we were thread bare but we only had one game per week and a decent enough starting 11 to play once per week. This season we've been playing 2-3 games in the same amount of time and it's taking it's toll on the squad. Yes he was backed but not enough that he could sustain last seasons form playing twice as many games. He understood this but again expected us to keep strengthening every window until we were able to compete. He isn't complaining about what we did last Summer, his rants right now are about what we are looking to do going forward and it's not matching his ambition or what he was expecting based on previous conversations with Levy when he took the job. As he keeps saying "it's a project" but right now it's a project that half way through has had the parameters and funding changed from the original brief.

The football is poor right now, no one can deny this but there have been circumstances to explain some of this, and it doesn't change that once again Levy has moved the goalposts on yet another manager.

You are also bang on with the fact at some point we need to stick rather than twist and bust, and for me a manager who is willing to ask "why are we settling for second best?" is the man that we should stick with.

So you simply want us to stick with Conte because he puts pressure and speaks up against him, Conte only does this as it appears he doesn’t care if he remains in the job. He has 6 months left so it’s easy to rant like he does.

This leaves us wasting time with a manager who has no long term philosophy and not willing to commit to the convictions of his own words!

I agree ENIC need to wake up or sell up! But we are wasting time backing a manager who will almost certainly leave end of season or create a shit storm everytime we hit a sticky patch.

I would rather we backed a manager who plays a style of football we can enjoy watching and that manager is supported financially and progresses the whole football club down to academy!

we are a club that’s fragile In Confidence and have a manager who is causing further turbulence.

yes he has won things but only at clubs who are already at a stage or position to win trophies! That doesn’t make him an elite manager!

We should not stick with Conte simply because we don’t think we can do better or just because he might get at Levy. That’s not going to help us

 

[PeeEyeEmPee]

2 of those are in their 4th season, 2 of them on their 3rd, and none of them have had 4 managers at Newcastle. Unless your counting the interim boss for 3 games between Bruce and Howe. Benitez was before Bruce, not exactly renowned for improving players like Steve Bruce.

Schar has played an average of 30 more minutes under Howe than he did under Bruce or Benitez. No surprises he's playing better in that case.

Saint Maximin has always looked like he's had something, I don't actually thinks he's improved although injuries could be part of the reason.

Almiron has bettered his best ever goal tally by more than double, in all likelihood it comes from playing more football, and in a more suitable system to him. Not sure what Joelinton is but he isn't exactly pulling up trees or putting up better numbers off an already low base.

Schar is the oldest of you the ones you mentioned, but the other 3 are between 25 and 28, which probably peak for a footballer, so no surprise they are doing well.

Ours aren't uncoachable either, but some of them have shown under previous coaches that they either aren't capable any more, unfortunately, or have reached their ceiling and are in decline.

We've all seen how quickly it can happen, look at Dele Alli for example.

I can go through our squad and do the same thing of finding all the reasons for something to work one way and not the other. The fact remains though that Howe has come in and worked with what he's got which, similar to us, consists of players that have been brought in and players that were already there. And he's currently doing a much better job than Conte is.

 

[Clockspur]

So Chelsea look terrible and have spent poorly but you use them for comparison? We just need to do what we did last year. There's nothing wrong with spending on Spence as an investment for the future. I don't think it impacted our other dealings, we just didn't find a more senior wing back who was obtainable at the time. We also invested in Udogie and previously invested in Sarr and Gil. It didn't stop us getting more experienced players for the first team in Perisic, Bissouma or Richarlison. Our approach since Paratici came in has been ideal. We just need Levy to let him get on with it. To be fair to ENIC they have financed the stadium and put good money into transfers since it opened.

You’ve missed the point, Chelsea backed Tuchel in the summer with £200m + but looked terrible and sacked him. But, and this is crucial, Todd Boehly didn’t tell Graham Potter I spent £200m+ in the summer, get a tune out of this lot, no instead he is spending £130m on one player for him.

why can’t Levy spend half that on a couple of wing backs the club desperately need?

But a CB that improves our defence.

It is all within his power, he just does t want to spend the money but will charge us the highest ticket prices in world football. We’re mugs.

 

[Albertbarich]

It was a classic ENIC window mate, Richarlison on a pay structure that suited us after Kenwright and Levy had a nice dinner together.

Bissouma at a favourable price from Levy’s best mates at Brighton.

Udogie - not for now though

Spence - Classic Levy youth punt even though the manager doesn’t want him

Finished off with some freebies.

No wing backs the manager actually wants even though they are integral to the managers system. The same good for nothing CB options.

Always half hearted with Levy

I wouldnt day that's quite fair

Perisic was a wingback the manager wanted and no matter how or why they came both Richarlison and Bissouma were top signings.

The issues for me were the lack of a top class centre back and forward cover.

I though Lucas was last his best when he scored the famous hat trick and yet he's here years later. We play 3 uptop but only actually have four who can be there so any injuries we were always going to be naffed.

But that's by the by. The bigger question for me is after all the mess with Poch then Mourinho and of course bloody Nuno why has Levy employed another manager he won't back?

It's chaos and unacceptable.

 

[Clockspur]

Lenglet is a very capable defender, and has been so far for us.

Re RWB, prior to his injury last season, Doherty started to play a lot better, such that we considered his injury a blow to our Top 4 hopes when it happened. We also bought a £20m RWB that we so far haven't given any sort of chance. So we might not yet have the finished article there, but that's not the same as "nothing". Is it too much to ask for Conte to manage the resources we do have until better come along?

Lenglet is not good enough, couldn’t get in at Barca and has been bang average for us.

Doherty is and I don’t want to under state this - shit.

the fact you rate these two tells me everything I need to know

 

[13VanDerBale13]

We all know how this ends.
*Maybe* then, the fans will be UNITED at the REAL problem ??‍

 

[SpursJord]

Let's face it, we can not continue to keep giving DL a free pass based on the good he has done off the pitch. I have said I believe AC should be doing better but at the same time DL needs to play a massive part in AC getting better by giving him the tools he needs.

What is important right now is to vent our frustrations at DL because as has been said DL needs to know that with or without AC we expect better, expect more for our club. How much longer do we get away with trying to look like an Elite club while acting and playing like a championship one? I understand AC hasn't committed, but let's just look at HK, didn't he get sold a world of Ambition to sign a 6 year deal before the club regressed? We all know HK wouldn't have signed that deal if he knew what was being said wasn't going to happen. Therefore how can we expect AC too?

 

[Albertbarich]

We all know how this ends.
*Maybe* then, the fans will be UNITED at the REAL problem ??‍

Nope.

Most will get excited and when it goes wrong that guy will get the same shit

 

[PeeEyeEmPee]

Agree 7 is ok. But you have to remember that this is the first proper window to back a new manager with a very different style of football than we previously deployed. Add to that the mess created at the end of Poch's reign and throughout Jose's reign in terms of transfer strategy and you can see that whilst a 7 or 8 is good, it's playing catch-up on several years of 5 or less rated windows (including a fucking 0 window in 2018).

As Trix has said, summer was ok as long as it was the start and we would continue to back Conte. There is £50m left of the £150m injection. There is whatever we can make from player sales. There should be £30-50m of CL money in the pot and there should be whatever our usual Jan transfer budget is (£30m?) on top of all of that. Realistically Conte (and us fans) should expect there to be in excess off £100m to spend in January, with potentially as much as £150m available.

That gets us: Porro (£40m), AM (£30m), Winger rotation (£20m) and a CB from the expiring contract list (£10-20m) in Jan.

Do that and Conte is backed for another window.

Then the summer will be £50m summer budget + CL/EL qualification money (£20-50m) + Player Sales (£50m) - to go out and get us 2 very good players.

What seemingly is happening though is that Levy sees the numbers very differently to the above. The above is not some kind of magical fantasy land numbers and apart from the already agreed and partly drawn down £150m injection from ENIC doesn't require any level of additional investment into the club outside of normal operating revenue streams.

They are though because, other than Porro whose release clause is known, those fees are just speculative. They also don't take into account salaries, signing-on fees, agent fees etc. This is my problem with these over-simplified Football Manager-type breakdowns. They sound great on paper, but are very rarely rooted in reality.

 

[knowlespurs]

He’s been given about £180m in one year.

Interesting to see how you got 180m

 

[Clockspur]

We all know how this ends.
*Maybe* then, the fans will be UNITED at the REAL problem ??‍

It won’t happen, we will rehire Poch and some of our fans will wet themselves with joy. 3 years down the line when we have won nothing and spent on sufficiently - despite Poch shielding the owners, they will stab him in the back again at the slightest unrest and we will hire the equivalent of Mourinho a day late and a dollar short of his prime.

Then those same fans will moan about the style of play whilst never pushing for the owners to be removed due to their lack of ambition.

How do I know - the greatest predictor of the future is the past

 

[spurs mental]

I can go through our squad and do the same thing of finding all the reasons for something to work one way and not the other. The fact remains though that Howe has come in and worked with what he's got which, similar to us, consists of players that have been brought in and players that were already there. And he's currently doing a much better job than Conte is.

I'm not disagreeing. He should be doing better, but in a previous post you've listed a lot of reasons as to why we aren't doing so well and some of them are very relevant in comparison to Newcastle.

1) settled XI, we've hardly played our best/strongest XI once this season, I'll include the injuries to key players here and lack of ability to rotate properly because of it
2) 2/3 games a week v 1/2 games a week, makes a huge difference. Conte isn't getting the time to work with the players as much as Howe is because we only have a day or 2 to prep for a game, whereas Howe may have 3 to 4 days, maybe even 5 to 6. Yeah, you might say Conte is paid more and a better manager than Howe, but when you don't have time to work with the players what can you do? He can't exhaust them for an extra couple of hours on the training pitch ahead of a game.
3) Momentum, we have none of it. We need to build it. Newcastle have a lot of it. And are riding on it. See their performance last night, bodies everywhere defending for their lives.

 

[mil1lion]

You’ve missed the point, Chelsea backed Tuchel in the summer with £200m + but looked terrible and sacked him. But, and this is crucial, Todd Boehly didn’t tell Graham Potter I spent £200m+ in the summer, get a tune out of this lot, no instead he is spending £130m on one player for him.

why can’t Levy spend half that on a couple of wing backs the club desperately need?

But a CB that improves our defence.

It is all within his power, he just does t want to spend the money but will charge us the highest ticket prices in world football. We’re mugs.

I'm totally lost why still comparing to what Chelsea do and like I said before it's not just money. It's clear that the plan under ENIC was to build the infrastructure and then when we can generate more money we can spend more. We've spent a reasonable fee on 2 wing backs in the summer. The only issue is spending on young players for the future and not experienced ones. We did get Perisic for the here and now though. It just seems that Levy has his idea of who to spend on and it doesn't fully align with Conte. Although the comments from Trix about Levy going back on the original agreement is a concern. We spent well last year but we need to do it again this year. If we don't then it's absolutely fair to complain. It just seems a bit premature given the Jan window has only just opened.

 

[14/04/91]

Wasn't there ITK in the summer that Conte was Levy's last chance as far as ENIC were concerned? Surely then it would be madness not to back him to the extent promised.

 

[SpartanSpur]

Essentiallly they added three players last summer who made their starting XI better in Jesus, Zinchenko, and probably most importantly Saliba. We have yet to see an improvment from any of our signings, maybe Perisic arguably.

Their squad has balance, a mix of athleticism, physicality and creativity, whereas ours is off in many ways. I’ve always thought putting together a side a bit like one of those old-fashioned scales where you need to have the correct weight on both sides for it to give you a reading. A team needs a balance of attributes to soar.

Agree with this. There is no balance in our team at all.

We are lacking in athleticism, technical ability and creativity through our side and have been for some time. The peak Poch side had all of these things, along with a top class CB pairing. Even some of our better players have flaws in some of these areas (Kane and Hojbjerg are a bit cumbersome for example). Bentancur, Romero and Kulusevski bring all of these things which is what helped us to top 4 and a strong start this year, so it's no surprise it's fallen apart with them getting injured. Hence why another Deki type signing this window is crucial, and by that I mean a playmaker type - why oh why did we just not bring Eriksen back!

The right hand side is a total vacuum and is really hurting us. With Deki and Doherty as a pairing it's just about functional but Doherty is still greatly lacking in athleticism. Get the RWB signing right and we'll upgrade the team instantly.

Son's shooting technique is excellent but everything else is off currently - he seems to offer absolutely nothing when dropping deep into central areas, and never really did before his loss of form. Him and Perisic seem to want to occupy the same spaces and have no chemistry. Conte needs to come up with a solution there. Possibly moving Son to a striker role ahead of Kane in a 3-5-2 (with Deki as an AM) is the answer.

No idea what we do with the concentration errors that come from Hugo and Dier especially. I guess the only real option is to try and replace them over the next two windows.

 

[Nerine]

The also plausible thing that is being overlooked:

If Conte was doing well with this group of players, the board would probably be even more reluctant to sanction incomings....

Do well, probs not gonna get backed fully, do poorly, probs aren't gonna get backed fully.

 

[Pekoni]

More quotes

Spoiler: The article

Antonio Conte believes that everybody needs to stay together amid chants from Tottenham fans for chairman Daniel Levy to leave the club.

Spurs slipped out of the top four at the weekend with a disappointing 2-0 home defeat to Aston Villa on New Year's Day. In the second half of the game a section of the supporters in the south stand at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium chanted loudly "Daniel Levy get out of our club".

Conte himself did not escape the fans' anger either, with his decision to bring on Emerson Royal booed and his move to send summer signing Djed Spence into the match in the 88th minute receiving a loud ironic cheer from the crowd before loud boos all round at the final whistle.

When asked about those chants aimed at the club's chairman, the Spurs head coach said: "Honestly, I didn't hear this, but it's important to stay together. In my life, my family also taught me that the truth is always the best solution, even if this is a bad truth. In this moment we are trying together to create a base.

"I understand that fans want to win, to lift trophies, to be competitive. I understand that very well, but to take this step, you need now to create a base, to have patience and I can't tell you something different or I'll have to tell you good lies and I don't like to tell good lies.

"We're working very hard for the best of the club. We're working together. We're in a position where everybody is giving 100%, the players, the staff, the medical department, the club. Everybody, but you know, now we have to try to build. It's important to have patience. Then to win a trophy can happen, but in mind the best targets are the Premier League and the Champions League, not the Carabao Cup or FA Cup with the greatest respect for these trophies.

"We're trying to create a base to become competitive for important targets and be strong. Now in this moment, we are not almost ready for many situations because we started from such a low point but we're working."

​

He added: "The club in this period tried to sign good players - we signed Romero, Kulusevski, Bentancur, Richarlison. The club is trying to do something to accelerate this process. We've started this process and we have to be compact and stay together, and to have patience.

"I understand that fans many times don't have patience but we have to do it, stay together and continue to work in the best possible way. What I can promise is great work, to be focussed for Tottenham. I don't sleep for Tottenham. This has to be very clear.

"I don't sleep, because when I go into a situation I go 120% percent and I'm not sleeping for Tottenham to try to improve the situation, but if you ask me to tell you [the media] lies or to send a message or to tell lies to our fans, I'm not the right person, because my family gave me this lesson: tell the truth and with the truth you can always go forward with your head held up."

 

[RuskyM]

Interesting to see how you got 180m

Bentancur and Kulu's loan in January is about £25m, then Richy (£50m), Romero (£40m)*, Bissouma (£25m), Udogie (£15m), Spence (£15m)*. Asterisks because I know Romero was a deal beforehand but we'll basically be paying the same for Deki and Spence is still there, regardless of Conte not wanting him to be. I might be a bit off on some figures but it's pretty close, no?

I'm highly critical of ENIC - they should've gone after the super league debacle, and appointing Mourinho was the single daftest thing a top club has done in years - but a lot of the complaints seem reheated. They do spend money now - it's just they often spend it in really daft ways.

 

[RuskyM]

"I understand that fans want to win, to lift trophies, to be competitive. I understand that very well, but to take this step, you need now to create a base, to have patience and I can't tell you something different or I'll have to tell you good lies and I don't like to tell good lies.

Sorry Antonio but this argument simply does not work if you're threatening to leave again from your contract that only has six months left on it.