Ian Wright has questioned why Antonio Conte joined Tottenham Hotspur in the first place following his outburst at the weekend, as he told Premier League Productions (20/03/23 at 2:05 pm).
The Arsenal legend stated that Conte initially ‘turned down’ Tottenham, so that proves that he had doubts about the club, the way it’s run and their inability to win trophies.
In the space of a few weeks, Spurs have been booted out of the FA Cup by Championship side Sheffield United, with Harry Kane starting on the bench, before struggling to put up a fight as AC Milan waved them goodbye in the Champions League.
Whilst Spurs followed that up by beating Nottingham Forest days later, they were back to their problematic ways as they let a 3-1 lead slip to draw 3-3 against a team now sitting at the bottom of the Premier League table.
Tottenham’s capitulation against Southampton was one Conte just couldn’t take and he verbally mauled the club in every way possible.
Ian Wright thinks the Spurs players will feel ’embarrassed’, but he just can’t understand why the £288k-a-week manager is at Tottenham given the difference between the two.
“When I saw that, all I could think of was the fact that, when he was offered the job the first time, he turned them down,” said Wright. “He didn’t want the job and he had a feeling about it.
“When you hear him saying that ‘they haven’t won anything’ and they have had ‘the same owner for a while’. He had those reservations before, so I don’t know why he took the job, in the end. He has come to the job and I haven’t seen anything great, in terms of the way he plays and sets up.
“He is probably saying it in the dressing room, but with a lot more, the language would be a lot more industrial. What I get from that is he has already done that in the dressing room, so if he’s doing it in public, he’s not bothered about what the players think.
“The players will be embarrassed by it because of what people say about Tottenham and they tease Tottenham and everything. What the players will be worried about, more than anything else, is the fans then turning it onto them. That’s what you are thinking as a player ‘he has hung us out there’.
“Why does he go to a club, where he knows the history, outside of Tottenham that’s what they are thinking. Why would he gone there, other than to change that culture?!”
WILL CONTE SURVIVE?
Over to you, Daniel Levy. It’s going to be interesting to see how the Spurs chairman reacts to this Conte outburst and whether he survives the international break.
Tottenham are sat in the top four, so from that perspective, Conte is doing his job and he is on target.
But there are clearly bigger issues than that, so when Spurs visit Merseyside to take on Everton, it won’t be a surprise if Conte isn’t in the dugout and Mauricio Pochettino has returned.
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