Ex-Manager watch: Antonio Conte

[spurs9]

I don't disagree with any of this, but I'm sick of Levy getting an easy way out when fans turn on the manager. Is Conte underperforming with this group of players? Of course he is. Has he been backed as well as he should have? Of course he hasn't. There is blame with both Conte and Levy.

How is Levy getting an easy way out? A failure of a manager (and/or Dof) is a reflection on him, since he is doing the hiring.

 

[DarwinSpur]

You honestly think that's backing a manager?! You have no idea some of the players he has asked for, and what he's been given instead. I hate the performances currently, and he's certainly not blameless, but the man needs to be properly backed with the 1st choice players he wants before I will be wanting him gone. Until we have investment or sell, we have no chance.

What rwb and lwb has he asked for and not been given?

 

[FinnYid]

To different degrees.

For example, the club I work for works like this.

- Club has an established strategy that the coach, sporting director and president are aligned with.
- Scouts find players based on the data that matches these necessary attributes.
- Scouts then watch players to see if talent matches data and if the player suits the strategy.
- Scouts agree on player and head scout presents to the coach/sporting director.
- If the coach is dead against it, it goes no further. If coach is happy with the choice the sporting director pursues it.
- The sporting director negotiates and ONLY IF the transfer gets a bit costly does the president get asked for his permission.

If it's within budget, the president doesn't ask questions. The team have earned the respect via their previous decisions. If the team make some bad decisions then the president will ask what happened and require answers but won't take over.

Everyone knows their role, the process and there are less faceless voices chirping in, where they shouldn't be. There are also fewer frustrations.

Well Levy initially was going for that direction (looking at Arnesen days), but he quickly changed to fan mode of going after shiny little "winners" for quick fix on trophy front.

We should have clear philosophy and we should look forward, hiring Mourinhos and Contes is exact opposite of that. Bringing in unsuitable coaches, looking at past instead of future.

 

[soup]

The worry is the consistency of the defeats. They're not slip ups, they're consistently bad results with consistently bad performances and before they became bad results they were still bad performances.

The midfield is always the one that stands out to me. We bought one of the best performers of recent seasons in Bissouma, added Bentancur, seen an improved Hojbjerg, got Skipp back, added Sarr but we're having far less control of the midfield than Winks and Sissoko ever did. We play 2 DMs and 5 at the back but still ship goals. Our front players sit back to help the midfield, but we still get overrun and hardly ever win a second ball.

Lloris looks good for France, Davies looks good for for Wales, Kane does for England, Romero for Atalanta and Argentina, Gil for Valencia, Bissouma for Brighton, Richarlison for Brazil, Hojbjerg for Denmark, Spence for Boro, Doherty for Wolves etc., so why are they looking so bad here?

We can't say 'Conte doesn't need money, just the right players' but then demand the club buy Gvardiol, Bastoni and Skriniar at 80-100m each and two wing backs at 70m each to complete our defence.

 

[Hotspur88]

How is Levy getting an easy way out? A failure of a manager (and/or Dof) is a reflection on him, since he is doing the hiring.

How many managers has he hired and sacked at the club?

How many trophies have we won since he's been in charge?

Yet here we still are with Levy in charge.

 

[wspur]

I don't think Levy is encouraged to give Conte 200m to rebuild the team looking at what is presented on the pitch. The question is would you risk the stability and the future of the club for a manager that might not be here in 6 months just for a chance to succeed? Levy'd never do that, so many clubs went this way and it takes decades to recover.

 

[SUIYHA]

All top teams want to stack creative players, Arsenal always have a player like Odegaard, meanwhile we aren't interested in the likes of Eriksen and Maddison when we have 4 DMs in the team. Replace our backline underperformers with Handanovic, Škriniar, Bastoni and we still lack creativity and IQ in final third.

And it's a lot easier for opposing teams to overload our midfield than for us to sign perfect system fits in WB and CB positions. And proven league players like Bissouma might still struggle.

When he won it in this league he had good creative options in Hazard, Pedro, Alonso, also Costa and Matic both had 7 assists each. Fabregas and Willian weren't terrible creatively either. Bunch of hard working runners but also lots of creativity and technical ability. Much better GK in Courtois too.

We have so many holes plus might need to replace Son and Kane very soon, even if we back him he will probably implode before new signings gel. Or because he didn't get Llorente equivalent after getting 8 other players including a striker for 30m.

If we get Qatar money the only difference will be him leaving around Christmas instead of this Summer IMO. Plus the whole living in a hotel thing with this family in Italy, not sustainable for long. He's always been one of my favorite coaches but he's a ticking time bomb even in a perfect setting, which ENIC will never provide to anyone.

This first paragraph is really it. Since 2012 we've almost never looked like a coherent attacking side other than when Christian Eriksen was on the pitch - sure we might have racked up the goals through good finishing from Kane or good counter-attacks but very rarely did we dominate games and pepper the opponents goal with shots. I thought things were starting to change in that good run in the second half of last season where we were excellent at times but it seems we've reverted to type again. The fact that Hojbjerg is currently relied upon to be our most creative midfielder says it all.

I hated Mourinho's style of football but I'm sure he'd have been much more successful here if he'd had an Ozil/Sneijder/Deco/Lampard creative type like he used to have in his best teams.

 

[Hotspur88]

I mentioned the other day this is a rough place to post lately with every part of each post coming under scrutiny. I haven't got the time and energy to have debates with people which has happened again tonight so I'll be pulling back and just putting up any info I get for a little while. I'll finish by saying this, Conte is underperforming, there is no doubting that. But anyone under the impression that a change in manager under the current ownership will bring us success is in for a rude awakening.

 

[DanielJohnCosta]

I didn't see that post until I had finished replying to the one I quoted! I began replying and something came up which delayed me. I'm tired of having a ridiculous back and to with you so I'll add you to the ignore list and please kindly do the same.

I’ve seen you complain about others in the post commenting something but not backing up and being up for a proper discussion, I’ve given you a proper reply and you dismiss me and all you can say is I’ll put you on the ignore list. If you don’t want to have a civilised conversation that’s fine but don’t take a moral high ground. Enjoy your day, I’m on holidays, it’s 30 degrees today and I’m going beach, have a good night if you have anything about you you’ll respond in the morning

 

[snakehipsspurs]

I’ve given up any hope now that this will work. Not because I don’t think it could, but because I don’t believe the club will do what is necessary to make it work.

My prediction is this window is poor, we give Conte more lip service about how good the summer will be, then a few weeks before we begin to renege and he walks without renewing. Getting major ‘end of the cycle’ vibes. Wouldn’t be surprised if Kane was gone too. Feeling very pessimistic

 

[Scott Spur]

How many managers has he hired and sacked at the club?

How many trophies have we won since he's been in charge?

Yet here we still are with Levy in charge.

You are dead right 88, if and when Conte goes, Levy must be held accountable by the fans. I understand why that didn’t begin at the ground today but it must from now on.

The club are going all out to put a positive image on the stadium at the moment, a shit storm with the fans will be the last thing ENIC need. Hopefully Viv will shove him out the very small door he came in.

 

[spurs9]

How many managers has he hired and sacked at the club?

How many trophies have we won since he's been in charge?

Yet here we still are with Levy in charge.

I agree (I said any failure of our manager is a reflection on him). I was asking how questioning Conte's performance is giving Levy an easy out?

 

[chrisd2k]

I'm not spending the evening debating how long Conte stays at a club etc.

It amazes me that people still try and blame the manager when the clear problem lies at the top table. Hopefully something is happening there.

It's both FFS

 

[Trent Crimm]

I ? hear ya mate it’s horrible right now. And yes of course Arsenal are making things 10x worse but put that to one side we are shit, we’ve got worse since last season after signing 6 new players, yes we’ve had injuries but the football is horrible week after week.

Yes we need a further clear out but the tactics and performances absolutely stink and Conte has to take some blame for that.

That being said… ALL ROADS AS ALWAYS LEAD TO ONE LITTLE BALD FUCKER.

Who sacked Poch? LEVY

Who hired the heads of recruitment or directors of football to let our squad go so stale for years towards end of poch era and after poch left? LEVY

Who made a huge mistake and waste of time hiring Jose a hasbeen manager who’s football isn’t wanted by our fans and who’s style of play was the polar opposite to what the squad had been playing under Poch? LEVY

Who then sacked said manager before a cup final? LEVY

Who then royally fucked up the manager search and turned down the likes of Ten Haag etc and ended up with Nuno? LEVY

Who then hired Paratici, a director of football who yes has been successful at Juve and who yes has made some decent signings but he’s someone who’s football philosophy is polar opposite to what our fans want to see, he thought Nuno played good football ffs? LEVY

Who then hired Conte, a world class manager but one who is NOT a long term project manager and one who plays a formation not suited to our squad AT ALL and so would require a further slow and painful rebuild and when he does finally go we are stuck with a squad of specialist players for a 3-4-3 so not many managers can even work with it? LEVY

So yes here we are half way through Conte’s rebuild but will be even stay and is that even the best thing for us at this point? The football is boring as fuck and we are going backwards compared to last season.

Ultimately this comes back to one man who has overseen the management of the football strategy of our club for the last 20 years and who has got it wrong time and time and time again.

Not only are we not successful but we are now completely bored as well. Cheers Levy.

At this point I really think it might just be better to Conte to walk and we hire a project manager who wants to play football we can enjoy because this isn’t fun at all, I doubt conte will want to stay anyway and Kane ? will be getting seriously itchy feet.

I haven’t read the rules of your quiz. Is the answer Levy ???

 

[spursfan77]

I really wanted him to succeed but it’s really not working is it?

I suspect because the players know he is off in the summer so just aren’t invested in it at all. But a fish rots from the head and all that.

 

[Hotspur88]

I’ve seen you complain about others in the post commenting something but not backing up and being up for a proper discussion, I’ve given you a proper reply and you dismiss me and all you can say is I’ll put you on the ignore list. If you don’t want to have a civilised conversation that’s fine but don’t take a moral high ground. Enjoy your day, I’m on holidays, it’s 30 degrees today and I’m going beach, have a good night if you have anything about you you’ll respond in the morning

A proper discussion?! What's are you going on about?! I've had several debates the past few weeks with people and never shy away from a "proper discussion". The point I made is that history shows that he is a successful manager. I acknowledge your point about that not being the case at Chelsea, I cannot disagree with this. But it frustrated me that this is the only thing you focused on in your initial reply. If you had started with the post you followed up with acknowledging the rest of his career etc then I wouldn't have had anything to disagree with. I don't appreciate comments such as "I've seen you complain about others" etc. I come on here to share firstly my opinion and also some info I get from time to time. I have nothing else to say on the matter. Enjoy your day.

 

[DanielJohnCosta]

A proper discussion?! What's are you going on about?! I've had several debates the past few weeks with people and never shy away from a "proper discussion". The point I made is that history shows that he is a successful manager. I acknowledge your point about that not being the case at Chelsea, I cannot disagree with this. But it frustrated me that this is the only thing you focused on in your initial reply. If you had started with the post you followed up with acknowledging the rest of his career etc then I wouldn't have had anything to disagree with. I don't appreciate comments such as "I've seen you complain about others" etc. I come on here to share firstly my opinion and also some info I get from time to time. I have nothing else to say on the matter. Enjoy your day.

Mate, you literally said I don’t want to reply to your comment and im going to put you on ignore… of course I’m going to call you out about not having a proper chat.

 

[isaac94]

the day we get a new manager and see 4 at the back will be a beautiful moment

 

[sam1972]

It’s obvious and I’m sure many people have said this he needs so sign a contract or leave.

 

[spursfan77]

Something has to happen in next week or so as the window only has 2 weeks left and we have signed no one & no contract extension for Conte. If he doesn't get a few players he wants in then he obviously won't sign a new deal and will walk or wait to get paid off.
Going to be a shitty messy time ahead for us IMO and it's all on Levy / ENIC.
Yea Conte has underperformed but they knew they what they were taking on when getting him so to not fully back him has left them no where to go and no scapegoat to blame.

Agree

we

are

sinking

like

a

very

slow

s
t
o
n
e

Surely we can all see it now.