Antonio Conte will tell Inter Milan’s president that he wants to stay at the Serie A champions beyond the summer, with FC Inter News claiming that the former Chelsea boss is not interested in the Tottenham Hotspur job.
When reports first emerged suggesting that Conte could be set for a return to the Premier League, the first question on everybody’s lips was, well, ‘why?’.
Conte had just guided Inter Milan to their first Scudetto crown in over a decade after all.
Tottenham, meanwhile, are on their lowest ebb since the end of the Andre Villas-Boas era, directionless, managerless and facing a summer of intense speculation surrounding the future of Harry Kane.
But there is one major reason why Conte’s touchline-treading days at the San Siro may be coming to a rather premature end.
Inter are mired in a perilous financial situation and the club’s Chinese owners are under pressure to raise funds and fast.
There is a very real chance that the likes of Romelu Lukaku, Alessandro Bastoni and Lautaro Martinez – the backbone of their Scudetto success – could be sacrificed.
And Conte, the best-paid manager in Serie A history, also faces being forced out of the San Siro.
According to reports coming out of Milan, however, the 51-year-old has no intention of turning his back on Inter and will tell the club’s embattled president, Steven Zhang, exactly that when they next meet face-to-face.
FC Inter News also take a sledgehammer to reports suggesting Conte would be interested in the Tottenham job, stating, quite simply, that ‘nothing could be further from the truth’.
Chelsea fans can breathe a sigh of relief, it seems, with the prospect of Conte dragging Tottenham to the summit of English football inducing a fair few sleepless nights at Stamford Bridge.
“Conte forces you to give your best at all times, more than you even thought you had. He is obsessed with victory, so when he loses, he becomes a demon. You daren’t speak to him,” the legendary Andrea Pirlo, who lifted a number of titles under his compatriot at Juventus, told FourFourTwo.
“Conte is the best coach I ever worked with.”
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