Ex-Manager watch: Antonio Conte

[Gb160]

This just goes to show how dumb the general fan is doesn’t it. Does anyone actually think that Conte wouldn’t choose Reguilon, Skipp and Lucas if they were fully fit.

Does anyone actually think Conte would change from his tried, trusted and winning formula of 3-5-2 if he didn’t have to due to the players available to him.

If anyone does actually think the above then they are, quite simply, an idiot.

It’s fucking crazy, even with our best 11 out there, they are levels above us at every single position except cf and (arguably) goalkeeper. This repeated hogwash of ‘this one is on Conte’ is just so reductionist I honestly can’t believe people are so keen to keep posting it.

 

[Ghost Hardware]

I think it is his desire to play for Argentina rather than working with the AC an the squad after his injury that pissed off all at Spurs.

That’s not up to him tho, that’s the clubs choice to allow him to be available or not. Punishing a player for going to play for his county when picked would be pretty shameful and I really hope that’s not the case. Nobody would want to join us in the future.

 

[DannyNZ]

It’s fucking crazy, even with our best 11 out there, they are levels above us at every single position except cf and (arguably) goalkeeper. This repeated hogwash of ‘this one is on Conte’ is just so reductionist I honestly can’t believe people are so keen to keep posting it.

Brighton, Wolves, Everton and West Ham seem to have coped with starting 11’s infinitely inferior to Chelsea. We are better than those teams but again meekly succumb to Chelsea. Nothing wrong with suggesting Conte might not have set team up well and hardly crazy hogwash, Conte has been brilliant for us but today wasn’t his finest.

 

[Gbspurs]

This just goes to show how dumb the general fan is doesn’t it. Does anyone actually think that Conte wouldn’t choose Reguilon, Skipp and Lucas if they were fully fit.

Does anyone actually think Conte would change from his tried, trusted and winning formula of 3-5-2 if he didn’t have to due to the players available to him.

If anyone does actually think the above then they are, quite simply, an idiot.

We're 4 managers in and people are still blaming the manager so yes people really are this stupid.

 

[Blake Griffin]

This just goes to show how dumb the general fan is doesn’t it. Does anyone actually think that Conte wouldn’t choose Reguilon, Skipp and Lucas if they were fully fit.

Does anyone actually think Conte would change from his tried, trusted and winning formula of 3-5-2 if he didn’t have to due to the players available to him.

If anyone does actually think the above then they are, quite simply, an idiot.

why did he make lo celso unavailable though? he brought him on the other night so what's changed since then?

i have no qualms at us trying to move lo celso on by the way but we could have put him in for tanganga and stuck to the 352. the game may well have panned out exactly the same but yesterday's shift to a 442 was just strange.

 

[Gb160]

Brighton, Wolves, Everton and West Ham seem to have coped with starting 11’s infinitely inferior to Chelsea. We are better than those teams but again meekly succumb to Chelsea. Nothing wrong with suggesting Conte might not have set team up well and hardly crazy hogwash, Conte has been brilliant for us but today wasn’t his finest.

Without knowing the minute details of the current conditioning of every single one of our players, or the precise reasons why certain players have been left out, it’s exactly that...hogwash.

 

[AnotherSpursFan]

This one is not on Conte, its on Levy.
Poch, Mourinho and Conte are three of the best managers in the world.

However you cant expect them to produce miracle every game with the same group of average players. Player who lack basic football fundamentals. Cant pass, cant trap a ball can't turn with the ball.

Even at 2-0 down we showed no urgency, our midfielders instict is still back pass back pass back pass..fucking hell

 

[mabolsa_ritchey]

This one is not on Conte, its on Levy.
Poch, Mourinho and Conte are three of the best managers in the world.

However you cant expect them to produce miracle every game with the same group of average players. Player who lack basic football fundamentals. Cant pass, cant trap a ball can't turn with the ball.

Even at 2-0 down we showed no urgency, our midfielders instict is still back pass back pass back pass..fucking hell

Funnily enough I did think that Conte would've got a lot of info from this game, if he actually needed it. Fight or flight would've kicked into the players once the second goal went in, and it's times like that when you really see who you can rely on and who you can't. It's all well and good performing when things are going our way, but we do need players who will also roll their sleeves up when the going gets tough. Unfortunately most of our players' basic instincts is to hide in these situations.
Unfortunately we all know this has been a Spurs problem for years, and we also know that we will not pay the money for the players who will resolve this problem.

Chelsea have beat us 4 times this season and barely got out of second gear to do that. If we're as far away from the top 3 as everyone keeps telling us then why have we beaten City and given Liverpool a proper game? There's a mentality problem when it comes to playing Chelsea in particular for some reason, but it's been a good chance to weed out the players with that problem to identify where we actually need to improve. Of course I won't even attempt to offer solutions there because I'm not Conte and I trust him 100%.

 

[rossdapep]

Spurs braced for pivotal week that could decide Antonio Conte future

The Italian has been short when pushed over the state of his Spurs side, with investment top of his priorities this month as the January transfer window closes

www.independent.co.uk

Same shit, different manager.

Makes for depressing reading.

I don't think it's a pivotal week at all.

The focus will be from now until the end of the summer window.

If we miss out on a player in January, then Conte will understand that the window is difficult. However if the same shit happens in the summer that's when things will get a bit worrying.

 

[longtimespur]

There's so many holes in this that i'm sure in the cold light of day you'll think to yourself 'ooops'

Not least of all you have no idea what Conte has said to anyone. None whatsoever, it's pure guesswork and a poor guess at that. These players haven't performed for quite some time. For any manager. Surely you can see you're pointing the finger at the wrong target here. I honestly cannot see any way in which you can come to such a conclusion.

That's a nice way of putting it!

 

[Archibald&Crooks]

That's a nice way of putting it!

He's just in need of some guidance

 

[Spurs_Bear]

Rant off

Similar. Starts with a different letter.

 

[FibreOpticJesus]

That’s not up to him tho, that’s the clubs choice to allow him to be available or not. Punishing a player for going to play for his county when picked would be pretty shameful and I really hope that’s not the case. Nobody would want to join us in the future.

That wasn’t my point. Of course it’s between club and player to agree. My point was that he only seems fit for international games. Then returns injured or becomes injured soon after. I think the club didn’t want him to go to Argentina this time (especially as they have qualified)and get some time with the coaches etc. It’s not about the club stopping international players going to their squads. I don’t think he sends a bad message to any of our current or future internationals. Also it has never stopped Liverpool,Utd, city, Chelsea or other clubs agreeing this with the players in the past. Also happens with England’s squad. I just conclude by reading through the lines that the club are pissed that he has chosen to go. And I don’t blame them!

 

[ultimateloner]

Funnily enough I did think that Conte would've got a lot of info from this game, if he actually needed it. Fight or flight would've kicked into the players once the second goal went in, and it's times like that when you really see who you can rely on and who you can't. It's all well and good performing when things are going our way, but we do need players who will also roll their sleeves up when the going gets tough. Unfortunately most of our players' basic instincts is to hide in these situations.
Unfortunately we all know this has been a Spurs problem for years, and we also know that we will not pay the money for the players who will resolve this problem.

Chelsea have beat us 4 times this season and barely got out of second gear to do that. If we're as far away from the top 3 as everyone keeps telling us then why have we beaten City and given Liverpool a proper game? There's a mentality problem when it comes to playing Chelsea in particular for some reason, but it's been a good chance to weed out the players with that problem to identify where we actually need to improve. Of course I won't even attempt to offer solutions there because I'm not Conte and I trust him 100%.

We were lucky against Liverpool and Man City was under-resourced in the first game of the season (most of their players were drained).

Chelsea won 4 of 4 against us because their style particularly suits playing against us.
They don't play a high-line so we have less chance to counter (which is the only style we excel at currently).
They have really good CMs, which also happens to be our weakest area on the pitch, so they are going to have lots of posession and can play through us. They also happen to mainly play centrally.
Their main weakness is in the full-backs and in center forward.
If we had a good right-back we could exploit Alonso (who lacks the legs to track back, but is technically really good so suits playing forward). This is shown when Bergwin looked threatening in the 1st half, and the way Alonso 'slipped' for our dis-allowed goal. However our RB was Doherty who lacks the quality to consistently attack.
Lukaku is also low in confidence, which is why Sanchez coped well yday.

Overall I disagree that it's anything to do with mentality (that we lose consistently to them). For me it's a combination of personnel and tactics.

 

[Ghost Hardware]

That wasn’t my point. Of course it’s between club and player to agree. My point was that he only seems fit for international games. Then returns injured or becomes injured soon after. I think the club didn’t want him to go to Argentina this time (especially as they have qualified)and get some time with the coaches etc. It’s not about the club stopping international players going to their squads. I don’t think he sends a bad message to any of our current or future internationals. Also it has never stopped Liverpool,Utd, city, Chelsea or other clubs agreeing this with the players in the past. Also happens with England’s squad. I just conclude by reading through the lines that the club are pissed that he has chosen to go. And I don’t blame them!

There's a lot of supposition going on here as we really have zero idea if the club have any feelings over him going or not going to play for his country. But if the club didn't want him to go, as with all the clubs you mention, it is the clubs choice to make that call. The club have to make the player available, if they make him available then put pressure on him to not go that could ultimately damage the players relationship with the international team, would be incredibly unfair on the player and i would certainly think not go down well with other players. Many international teams will run tight ships, especially in South America, if a player is picked but then the player says no he's not going because he would rather train with his team then that could quite easily damage his chances of getting picked in the future. It shows that his country isn't a priority. It does very much suck that in Gio's case he has come back injured on at least two or three occasions but you cant really blame a player for getting injured in a game or for being injury prone. Fair enough if he is pretending to be injured whilst with us and miraculously recovering for the Argentina games then yes, he should be reprimanded, but there is a lot of competition in that midfield and if he actually wants to keep his place he needs to be playing regularly for his club. And, in that regard the club wouldn't make him available anyway as they didn't with Romero because he wouldn't be fully fit. Only fully fit players will be allowed to leave.

I get that there are a lot of question marks of Gio's ability and many just don't rate him and i can see the club selling him because he is susceptible to injury and yes I would rather he wasnt called up and had the time instead to work with Conte on tactics etc. But blaming or punishing him for going to play for Argentina or getting injured for Argentina seems incredibly unfair and not very professional and i just dont see how that can be the case. And that goes for any player.

 

[TorontoYid]

We were lucky against Liverpool and Man City was under-resourced in the first game of the season (most of their players were drained).

Chelsea won 4 of 4 against us because their style particularly suits playing against us.
They don't play a high-line so we have less chance to counter (which is the only style we excel at currently).
They have really good CMs, which also happens to be our weakest area on the pitch, so they are going to have lots of posession and can play through us. They also happen to mainly play centrally.
Their main weakness is in the full-backs and in center forward.
If we had a good right-back we could exploit Alonso (who lacks the legs to track back, but is technically really good so suits playing forward). This is shown when Bergwin looked threatening in the 1st half, and the way Alonso 'slipped' for our dis-allowed goal. However our RB was Doherty who lacks the quality to consistently attack.
Lukaku is also low in confidence, which is why Sanchez coped well yday.

Overall I disagree that it's anything to do with mentality (that we lose consistently to them). For me it's a combination of personnel and tactics.

I agree with most apart from mentality. Too often (not just against Chelsea) I see us score a goal then relax and defend it. Other teams like the Manchester ones keep looking for more goals. This match though came down to lack of depth leaving us unable to play the managers preferred style or switch things up to foil the way Chelsea play.

 

[mabolsa_ritchey]

We were lucky against Liverpool and Man City was under-resourced in the first game of the season (most of their players were drained).

Chelsea won 4 of 4 against us because their style particularly suits playing against us.
They don't play a high-line so we have less chance to counter (which is the only style we excel at currently).
They have really good CMs, which also happens to be our weakest area on the pitch, so they are going to have lots of posession and can play through us. They also happen to mainly play centrally.
Their main weakness is in the full-backs and in center forward.
If we had a good right-back we could exploit Alonso (who lacks the legs to track back, but is technically really good so suits playing forward). This is shown when Bergwin looked threatening in the 1st half, and the way Alonso 'slipped' for our dis-allowed goal. However our RB was Doherty who lacks the quality to consistently attack.
Lukaku is also low in confidence, which is why Sanchez coped well yday.

Overall I disagree that it's anything to do with mentality (that we lose consistently to them). For me it's a combination of personnel and tactics.

Whilst I will agree with the personnel and tactics point, I will disagree with it not being anything to do with mentality seeing as though (to me anyway) in each of those 4 games we have seemingly given up the game once they got their first goal. It's easy to say that they have a great bench so what can we do about that, but then that is us having the same mentality of hiding when the going gets tough. Where's the resilience gone from the mid-Poch seasons?

Also, lucky against Liverpool? Behave. They were lucky we decided we couldn't finish in that game.

 

[The Doc]

I agree with most apart from mentality. Too often (not just against Chelsea) I see us score a goal then relax and defend it. Other teams like the Manchester ones keep looking for more goals. This match though came down to lack of depth leaving us unable to play the managers preferred style or switch things up to foil the way Chelsea play.

I agree it's lack of depth, but, more so, lack of quality. Just out of interest, I looked at the XI we put out when we beat them three times between Jan 2017 and Nov 2018. I think most would agree the XI we had for the first game, in Jan 2017, is as good as we have had in a very long time, and you can see a big fall-off in quality between that team and what we had 22 months later, even when we won 3:1 in Nov 2018. Try comparing that Jan 2017 team with now. I think we need a lot to go right for us in terms of recruitment over the next few windows to get anywhere near where we were. Just have to hope that happens. No pressure Fab....

 

[mpickard2087]

4-4-2 was a surprise, a very different approach we haven't seen from Conte yet as it was so much more designed to defend and be tough to break down and nick what we could on the counter, but I thought worked.... up to a point.

The early stages we looked really unsure, but after figuring out who should pick up Mount and his runs into the channels we had 15-20 mins where we were pretty secure and they couldn't progress the ball against us. Two solid banks of four, the midfield quartet often narrower than the back line, not committing ourselves just focusing on retaining shape, and usually our fullbacks being the widest players who would engage the opposition wideman and send them back inside into traffic where we'd have bodies to help out. We were largely untroubled in this spell defensively, and even had our moments on the counter. The plan was working.

The problem was we couldn't retain our discipline in many aspects, and it started about 10 mins before the break. I don't know if players started getting bored or something or thinking "right I've got to start getting at them" but all of a sudden we started chasing lost causes or trying to press individually - the first moments were when Hojbjerg and then Sessengnon tried to press high, Chelsea bypassed them and went length of the pitch - and all they achieved was opening gaps and dragging others out of position to scramble on the cover. We also stopped working to get into position and get behind the ball. Tanganga's yellow card was compounded by the fact that our shape collapsed and we stopped defending as a unit. Early in the game he showed CHO inside and had numbers waiting to help, but then all of a sudden he was isolated time and again, got scared to make a tackle, and was getting pasted. At this point we were back on the ropes a bit.

At HT something needed to happen, not necessarily personnel changes but as a group they needed to sort out our failing discipline and get back to what we were doing well. A good defensive shape, restrict space through the middle and into the final third, and be patient and stick at it. What happened instead though is that things just picked up where they left off. I think this is where Conte can be blamed for something, he is the leader after all and we didn't even look like we were attempting to sort things out, it just drifted on, and although it took a peach of a strike you could see the breakthrough coming from a mile off. Depleted ranks or not I didn't see much game management or marshalling of the troops.

Obviously employing tactics like that, and ongoing lack of options/quality, going behind would always be an issue. 2-0 straight after killed us, and we limped to the final whistle as Chelsea once again went easy on us.

To sum up: 4-4-2 wasn't actually bad, we just didn't remain disciplined for nearly long enough and as a collective (and that includes Conte) we did nothing to address the issues when they arose and paid the price. What did us wasn't really our lack of quality, it was more mental aspects of the game (plus a good goal to break the deadlock).

 

[Neon_Knight_]

Some of you may find this article an interesting read, regarding how Conte tweaked the formation and lineup during his title winning season at Chelsea.

Relatively average but functional players were selected over more creative (and higher paid) players like Fabregas, Oscar and Willian. This is one of the main reasons that the idea of bringing in Traore to play RWB doesn't scare me - assuming all the ITK and runours are true about Conte wanting him. It's also why I'm content with Hojbjerg, Skipp and Winks as our main CM options (all very functional players), with rumours suggesting our more creative CMs are planned to be replaced by less creative but more functional players. Kessie seems like a much better fit for Conte than Dele and Ndombele. Only time will tell whether Sarr (signed under Nuno, then loaned straight back) is a player Conte wants.