Antonio Conte has praised Dejan Kulusevski as an ‘excellent investment’ and believes the Tottenham Hotspur winger has bags of potential.
When Conte arrived and immediately started playing a 3-4-3 system, it became clear that Tottenham needed another winger.
Son Heung-min was and still is fantastic down the left flank but Lucas Moura wasn’t quite at the same level down the right.
After links to Adama Traore, Tottenham did pounce with a deal for a winger with Dejan Kulusevski arriving from Juventus.
Antonio Conte has praised Dejan Kulusevski
The Swede had once been tipped for stardom after shining on loan at Parma, but failed to really live up to his billing with Juventus.
Fabio Paratici was more than happy to bring Kulusevski to Tottenham though having signed him for Juventus in the first place.
Some had concerns about Kulusevski’s suitability for the Premier League given that he isn’t exactly the quickest winger ever.
Kulusevski has defied those doubters though, racking up 11 assists and six goals in just 29 appearances for Tottenham.
The 22-year-old has been truly outstanding for Tottenham, bringing guile, patience and creativity to the Spurs front line.
The problem right now is that Kulusevski is out of action having picked up a hamstring injury whilst on international duty with Sweden.
Tottenham will hope to have Kulusevski back soon, but it probably won’t be against Eintracht Frankfurt tonight.
Conte has now spoken to Sky Italia about Kulusevski, Brandon him an ‘excellent investment’ for Tottenham.
Kulusevski is still only on loan at Tottenham from Juventus but he is expected to join permanent in 2023.
Conte notes that Kulusevski has ‘a lot of potential’ and believes he can be an important player for Tottenham, something that may already be true given how much Spurs have missed him in recent games.
“He is doing great things, he has a lot of potential,” said Conte. “He is a crack and has a great desire to improve, he sets himself the goal of becoming an important player. It was an excellent investment for Tottenham.”
“He and Bentancur guaranteed us a big leap in quality last year. Coming from Italy they were more tactically prepared, they helped us a lot to hit the Champions League goal, something miraculous if you think from where we started,” he added.
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