Danny Murphy slammed Antonio Conte for not bringing Dane Scarlett into the action ‘earlier’ during Tottenham’s 1-0 FA Cup defeat to Middlesbrough on Tuesday night, as he told Match of the Day.
BBC commentator Guy Mowbray shared that Conte stated, before their defeat at the Riverside, that Scarlett is ‘the pick of all the players in the academy’.
If that’s the case, then Murphy didn’t understand why the 17-year-old striker was thrown into the deep end, in the second half of stoppage-time and when Boro had already scored.
This is what Mowbray and Murphy had to say about Scarlett when he was introduced into the action.
“Here is an interesting move, Dane Scarlett 17-years-old,” said Mowbray. “Highly-praised by Conte this week. He said ‘he is the pick of all the players at the academy’.”
Murphy responded: “Well, he should have put him on earlier then. If he has got that much belief in him. Give him the opportunity because they have been way off it.”
It’s happened again to Tottenham and the emotions of Conte are going to be through the roof.
The Italian had an absolute meltdown when Spurs suffered a defeat against relegation-threatened Burnley last week.
And it remains to be seen how he reacts to getting dumped out of the FA Cup by a Championship side now.
But, whilst Conte is an elite coach, he still needs to take responsibility for the defeat and the manner in which he set his team up from the off.
Spurs sat back on Chris Wilder’s side and they weren’t on the front foot enough until Steven Bergwijn was subbed on in the 81st minute.
The biggest problem facing these Spurs players is that they deserved to lose and it was Boro who looked like the Premier League team.
Receive exclusive football transfer news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
