The appointment of Antonio Conte was supposed to give Tottenham Hotspur the sort of pulling power that would leave even the biggest clubs in the Premier League green with envy.
After all, who wouldn’t want to play under a manager who is almost a magnet for silverware; someone who turned Victor Moses from Chelsea’s forgotten man into a Premier League-winning wing-back.
But, if the events of January 2020 are anything to go by, hiring one of the planet’s most successful tacticians as Nuno Espirito Santo’s replacement may actually represent a death knell for Fabio Paratici’s hopes of luring a £37 million forward to North London.
According to The Mirror (26th September, page 73), Spurs’ marketing director has his heart set on a reunion with Dejan Kulusevski in the English capital.
Paratici paid £37 million to bring Serie A’s 2020 Young Player of the Year to Juventus during his time in Turin but, after starting just two of Juventus’s 12 league fixtures since the return of Max Allegri, Kulusevski may be on the move once again before long.
But, in what could be a major blow to Paratici’s plans, the 21-year-old Sweden international turned down Antonio Conte’s Inter Milan during the winter of 2020, citing concerns over the Italian’s style of play and tactical set-up.
Will Dejan Kulusevski reject Antonio Conte again?
“(Then-Juventus boss Maurizio) Sarri was nice. He put me at ease. I knew his Chelsea side and his style of play. That’s also why I chose to play for the Bianconeri,” Kulusevski explained to Gazzetta dello Sport.
“With Conte, the movements are different, as is the tactical set-up. That was why I had doubts.”
Kulusevski stopped short of explaining his stance but – as Christian Eriksen discovered – there is not really a place in Conte’s preferred 3-5-2 formation for an orthodox ‘number ten’
“He chose Juventus primarily because it was the team that wanted him most, they were very sure of him,” Andreas Engelmark, Kulusevski’s former coach at Swedish outfit Brommapojkarna, told SpazioJ in May of last year.
“He did not choose Inter because the tactical set-up would have been more difficult (for him). He would have played as a mezzala (a wide midfielder) or on the right in a 3-5-2.
“He would have found it more difficult to exploit his main feature of cutting inside to shoot.”
It’s worth pointing out that Tanguy Ndombele and Giovani Lo Celso, the two players in Spurs’ squad that most closely resemble Kulusevski, have not been included in the starting XI for either of Conte’s first two games at the helm.
Paratici, then, may have little choice but to return to the drawing board with the January window less than two months away.
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