Tim Sherwood has claimed that Steve Hitchen was a ’scapegoat’ at Tottenham, as he told Premier League Productions (10/02/22 at 12:20 pm).
The former Spurs boss added that Antonio Conte was recently ‘having a dig’ at the now-departed 45-year-old for the club’s recent signings not being good enough.
Hitchen was Tottenham’s head of recruitment, before his departure last week, with Fabio Paratici currently the man tasked to run the transfer train in north London.
The likes of Tanguy Ndombele and Giovani Lo Celso, who were some of the club’s biggest ever purchases, were loaned out recently with Conte deeming them not good enough.
Sherwood feels that there is now ‘a lot of pressure’ on the players Conte has now brought to the club – Rodrigo Bentancur and Dejan Kulusevski – as he made his claim about Hitchen.
“He was head of recruitment,” said Sherwood. “He has been the scapegoat really.
“Antonio (Conte) came out quite publicly and said ‘the signings have not been good enough’, hence why a lot of them have gone out on loan.
“Now he’s having a dig at Steven Hitchen. He’s been head of recruitment. Paratici is in there now.
“Now, there is a lot of pressure on Bentancur and Kulusevski, who are clearly Conte signings.”
Simply put, Hitchen had no leg to stand on because, from the recruitment side, Spurs had gone backwards and there weren’t signs they were going to move forward.
If anything, signings such as Ndombele, probably made Spurs worse and his exit shouldn’t be a surprise.
Paratici is yet to convince the Spurs fans that he is the right man for the job, but all will be revealed in the summer.
But the Italian did play a huge part in Conte joining Spurs, so he deserves huge credit on that part.
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