“Listen”: £26m man admits he ignored Conte plea to stay at Tottenham, went straight to Levy

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Steven Bergwijn has given a very revealing interview to Algemeen Dagblad about his time at Tottenham.

What’s the story?

Well, the Netherlands international left Spurs on July 8th to join Ajax in a deal worth £26m.

Bergwijn’s exit came after he made just four Premier League starts in the 2021/22 campaign, and he has now revealed that Antonio Conte failed to deliver on his promise of game time.

Interestingly, the Dutchman added that he went to see Daniel Levy to force his exit from N17.

Bergwijn said: “When he told the media during the winter break that I was going to be important and he didn’t want me to go to Ajax, I thought: OK, this is not the time to argue. Let’s see if it changes.

“You work hard and fill in well, but you always get three or four minutes of playing time. That’s not what I was waiting for. It was very frustrating. I had no connection with Conte. I think we only had one conversation after the last practice of the season. I then went to the director and said: Listen, I’m not coming back. We’re going to find a solution. I just want to leave.”

We can understand why the 24-year-old was upset in north London.

Bergwijn was given slithers of action by Conte, and he only finished 90 minutes in the Premier League once under the Italian.

From the 3-2 defeat to Manchester United on March 12th, to the 3-0 win over Arsenal on May 12th, the Amsterdam-born forward only played 28 minutes of Premier League football across seven appearances.

As Bergwijn said, most of his opportunities unfairly came in the form of substitute appearances in the dying stages.

Hopefully, he can rediscover his form of old, back in the city of his birth.

Steven Bergwijn didn’t suit Tottenham under Antonio Conte

After the Italian replaced Nuno Espirito Santo, it was clear to us that things were unlikely to work out.

Why? Well, Conte doesn’t tend to use traditional wingers like Bergwijn, as he prefers to line up with wing-backs.

Of course, the Dutchman is capable of playing centrally, but with the likes of Kane and Heung-min Son ahead of him, he was rarely going to start.

Fortunately for Tottenham, they received nearly all of the £27m they paid PSV Eindhoven for Bergwijn’s signature back in January 2020, which can be reinvested into the squad before the transfer deadline.