Simon Jordan has slammed Antonio Conte for seemingly changing his tune about Tottenham Hotspur, months after his departure.
That ferocious press conference from Antonio Conte back in March is still ringing true to this day, but with the Italian recently claiming that his experience at the club was ‘wonderful’, Simon Jordan wasn’t having any of it.
It’s well-known that the former Crystal Palace owner is good pals with Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy, so he’s always protective of his old mate, which he was once again on talkSPORT (15/06/23 at 11:55 am).
Ange Postecoglou is the new face in Spurs’ dugout, as the Treble-winning coach at Celtic is tasked with turning around a team that is declining in many areas across the pitch and off the field of play.
Whilst Conte’s CV makes for better reading than Postecoglou’s, one thing the new Tottenham manager will bring is a more attack-minded style of play, which is something fans have been crying out for ever since Mauricio Pochettino left.
Nonetheless, talkSPORT presenter Jim White read out some of Conte’s recent comments and Jordan explained how ‘that’s a different song he is singing now’.
“At Tottenham, Antonio Conte was speaking, apparently he was at an award ceremony on Tuesday,” said White. “He spoke afterwards. Has Antonio Conte moved into Jose Mourinho territory with his Premier League shelf life?
“Conte said ‘when we arrived the team was eighth or ninth, yet we qualified for the Champions League. How good was that? Some had decided to settle for less, the last experience, like all of them, have some things that were positive and some less so. The experience was wonderful at Tottenham. We gave the maximum possible and all that we had to give. I still have a desire to coach’.”
Jordan responded: “That’s a different song that he is singing now, isn’t it?! That wasn’t a song he was singing when everybody was bleedin’ useless, gutless, prepared to lose, selfish and self-centred. That’s quite not the same thing is it?!
“What’s this, me myself and Irene moment where he has suddenly caught sight of himself and realised. ‘You know what, maybe I went a little bit too overboard in trying to get my own way. Trying to get myself out of the door and get paid rather than having the courage of my conviction and say, I hate it here, so I forsake my contract. You keep the money, Daniel.”
Conte has been proven right
People like Simon Jordan might not like the method Conte used to express his views, but he was right, and that’s the bottom line.
After he left, conceding and dropping points against 10-man Everton, those quite embarrassing defeats to Newcastle United and Liverpool, that late loss to Bournemouth and missing out on Europe altogether.
All the Spurs players did, after Conte left, is prove that they don’t have the bottle and they are an easy touch, which was the point the outspoken coach was trying to make.
They had every chance to prove him wrong by, not necessarily finishing in the top-four, but showcasing it in their performances and securing a top-six finish, but they didn’t.
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