Spurs 21/22: Conte? Conte!!

Gunfighter 09

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Levy's mouthpiece just confirmed this is probably happening:

View: https://twitter.com/AlasdairGold/status/1400184513074974877


Now looking likely that Antonio Conte will become the next Tottenham boss. Spurs pushed hard to try to bring Mauricio Pochettino back but PSG have fought hard to keep him. Conte is one of the top managers in the world and it's going to be fascinating to see how he will (contd)

Fit into a very different environment at Spurs than he's previously had elsewhere. The arrival of his former Juventus DoF Fabio Paratici also looking likely but both men will need funds to work with and it's going to be interesting to see if they get that and where from. (Contd)

Conte suddenly becoming a free agent made him a very attractive prospect for Levy, but if he puts pen to paper as expected it'll be intriguing to see how the two men gel, whether he fits that Levy DNA statement and whether he can settle at Spurs for longer than elsewhere. (Contd)

No denying it would be a big statement appointment but without adequate funding Conte is going to find far more frustration ahead than he did at Inter and Chelsea. As a journalist he will be a fascinating character to cover and I hope he's given the chance to succeed. (Contd)
It's cool that Spurs are actually able to get such a quality of manager, but this seems certain to end Conte and Levy fighting. I hope Daniel can find a bunch of that NFL & Stadium tour money in the couch cushions to give Conte the level of spending he is going to demand.
 

Tangled Up In Red

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It's cool that Spurs are actually able to get such a quality of manager, but this seems certain to end Conte and Levy fighting. I hope Daniel can find a bunch of that NFL & Stadium tour money in the couch cushions to give Conte the level of spending he is going to demand.
Sure feels like the Jose hire... if it had been 10 year ago peak Jose.
 

Morgan's Magic Snowplow

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The fit is actually decent. Doherty played as a wingback in a back 3 at Wolves and that role suits him more than as a FB in a back 4. Reguilon and Sessegnon (was out on loan but should be back) are both pacey players who are better going forward than defending in their penalty box. Sessegnon is more naturally a winger than an LB at this stage of his career and the wingback role could really suit him. Some of Sanchez's best performances at Spurs came in his first season playing in a back 3 flanked by Alderweireld and Vertonghen.

Also no matter what system they end up playing, Spurs will need another RB anyway with Aurier out the door.

The tricky part of the 3-5-2 is fitting in all the midfielders and attackers. Dele in particular doesn't have an obvious spot with Kane and Son likely taking the two forward roles.
I think the wingbacks are actually the last thing to worry about with Conte. Not only does Spurs have some good options on the left, but Conte has gotten good results from players like Victor Moses, Marcos Alonso, Stefan Lichsteiner, and Ivan Perisic in the past in those roles, even guys like Ashley Young. It doesn't really demand top players, just hard workers who will do the job and get up and down the pitch. Bergwijn might be an interesting conversion project there.

IMO, the trickier positions are the three in midfield and the central CB in the back three. Conte's teams have always had a huge amount of quality in these positions. For the middle CB he had Bonucci at Juve, then immediately bought David Luiz when he took over Chelsea, and has used De Vrij at Inter. Those were all top shelf ball playing CBs right in their primes, guys really comfortable carrying the ball forward and effectively being deep playmakers capable of a range of passing. I don't think that player currently exists on the Spurs roster. My guess is that he would buy somebody for that role and then let the existing CBs compete for the two outside positions.

Midfield also seems like a place for roster turnover. Conte has preferred to have an experienced deep lying playmaker (Pirlo, Brozovic, to some degree Matic at Chelsea) surrounded by all action midfielders of real top quality (Vidal, Marchisio, Pogba, Kante, Barella, an Eriksen/Vidal rotation now) who can do defensive work but are also great technical players who can contribute creatively in the final third. I don't think the deep lying playmaker is on the Spurs roster. Skipp seems like he could grow into that role over time but I can't see Conte handing him the keys right away. N'Dombele and Lo Celso seem like potential candidates for the box-to-box roles but with some pretty big lingering questions about them so I bet Conte would bring in somebody for at least competition for those positions, if not to improve on one of them. None of Sissoko, Winks, Dele, or Hojberg seem like very good fits for either kind of role.
 
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DJnVa

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Two tweets from Fabrizio Romano:

Tottenham are in direct contact with Antonio Conte representatives even today. PSG still convinced Pochettino is staying. #THFC Spurs board and Conte now talking about his staff and salary too. Fabio Paratici will decide about Spurs director of football proposal next week.

Tottenham are still in talks with Heung-min Son agents to reach an agreement on contract extension. Spurs board ‘confident’ to complete the agreement soon, once the new manager situation will be clarified. #THFC #Spurs
 

Cellar-Door

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I am shocked that the guy who wants lots of control and money in the window has not signed on with the club that was never going to give him lots of control or spend money.
 

Zososoxfan

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This is a bigger deal than I thought it was. Cynical local Spurs supporters are saying that this may have been a ploy to sell season tickets (deadline timing lines up) and on Conte's part to create more interest and command higher comp from other clubs. Conte really never made sense in light of Levy's comments (namely wanting attacking free flowing football and supporting young players) but it still would've been a welcome hire. Nevertheless, the public nature of all this make Spurs front office look shitty and inept...again.

All that said, if they end up with Ten Hag or Potter, I'd still be thrilled. The only caveat there is that it needs to be soon so the club can move on to transfer business.
 

caseumsd

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Hahaha fuck ENIC and Levy. Trick season tickets holders by releasing rumors the days before season tickets are to be renewed (regarding Conte and Poch) and now hire a coach who couldn’t finish higher than 7th in the Serie A. This will be the first year I will not buy any Spurs related merchandise or watch a game this season. We went from Champions League finals two years ago to this. Once the Kane sale is final, and we are still stuck with Sissoko, Wanks and Dier on the team, we will be lucky to not be in a relegation battle.​
 

DJnVa

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Once the Kane sale is final, and we are still stuck with Sissoko, Wanks and Dier on the team, we will be lucky to not be in a relegation battle.
They won't be in a relegation battle.
 

Gunfighter 09

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Have Spurs found their very own mikeford?
Please, no. We are currently running fourth in the SoSH fanbase table and this dude might drop us into something terrible like 8th place.

Hahaha fuck ENIC and Levy. Trick season tickets holders by releasing rumors the days before season tickets are to be renewed (regarding Conte and Poch) and now hire a coach who couldn’t finish higher than 7th in the Serie A. This will be the first year I will not buy any Spurs related merchandise or watch a game this season. We went from Champions League finals two years ago to this. Once the Kane sale is final, and we are still stuck with Sissoko, Wanks and Dier on the team, we will be lucky to not be in a relegation battle.​
-80+ % of the season tickets are already paid for and they have a seemingly endless waiting list. I couldn't get seats this year and I've been on the list for four years.
-He finished 5th in 2020, went through an ownership change and had them running in the UCL spots until they hit an injury crisis in March. At the very least he seems like an excellent buy low candidate. I don't see how this is worse than "finished 16th but had awesome Xg numbers," for example.
-You'll watch plenty of games this year.
-They won't be stuck with any of the sale players you mention. They might keep one of the two English dudes (and I irrationally love Dier, so I hope it is him), but they are going to sell plenty of the players you hate.



Anyway, I am obviously disappointed that Poch isn't coming back. But, I prefer a younger project manager to someone like Conte who Levy is going to give 75% of what they need and destined to end in a dramatic flameout. Is Fonseca more likely to be the next AVB than the next Poch? - Yes. Does it make less sense to hire the Portuguese version of Potter when you could just get Potter? - Not entirely


But.... If we are going to spend endless months bitching about how Levy needs to give up some control and hire a DoF, we have to accept what the DoF decides and see how it goes. If they let Paratichi run the transfer market and team construction and that allows Levy to focus on naming rights, selling more events at the stadium and squeezing every last fucking penny out of City or Chelski for Kane, they I think they will be in a better spot come next season.
 
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Tangled Up In Red

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Fwiw, Lo Celso was the most threatening / creative player in the pitch in the first half against Chile (Copa America). It's a Gio we've only seen glimpses of... so great to see him doing good things on a big stage.
 

67YAZ

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Gattuso? I had to check because I thought he had just signed on at Fiorentina…and he quit/was fired after 23 days, 15 days before even taking the role officially! A new record for him. I hope Levy has more sense than this…
 

Kliq

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What an embarrassment this club has been during this process. At this point Big Sam is going to be the manager.
 

Gunfighter 09

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It is hilarious to watch Fonseca’s people feed their side to Romano while the Spurs people feed Jack PittBrook their version.

What a club.
 

Morgan's Magic Snowplow

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Please no not Gattuso.
That seems like it would be a very weird appointment, not only based on his checkered managerial history but also his association with Mendes, who to my knowledge isn't somebody that Levy has worked closely with in the past. Who knows what happens next in this saga but I wouldn't be surprised if the Gattuso rumor turns out to be BS fed to the media by Mendes to help his client and Levy is looking elsewhere, like at one of the PL managers.

I will say that, independent of my feelings about Spurs, Gattuso is one of my favorite characters in the game and he would bring a high degree of entertainment to the league if he came. And, of course, there may not be a better way of summing up the last few years at Spurs than this...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJHUbtR0yI8
 

coremiller

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So if Spurs are just going to fuck people like Fonseca and teams like Fiorentinna over…. they better be able to spend enough money to cover for every other team hating them.

This thread from Alastair Gold is something:

View: https://twitter.com/alasdairgold/status/1405543475672588296?s=21
I could see screwing Fonseca if a true unicorn became available. Like if suddenly Klopp were on the market, of course you kick Fonseca to the curb. But for Gattuso and Mendes? Why?

Doesn't speak that well of the new DoF.
 

67YAZ

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And if want to get in bed with Mendes, why not just take a run at Nuno? None of this adds up.
 

DJnVa

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And Gattuso left Fiorentina over transfer budget issues? This is going to go great.
 

Zososoxfan

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The club really do look incompetent right now. Unless they somehow end up making a good hire or luck into one, they will be rightfully derided.
 

Morgan's Magic Snowplow

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The comments with respect to women and gay marriage seem less troubling than analogous comments made by Sarri (whose comments were also much more recent) and he just sort of apologized and said he wasn’t homophobic or sexist, people can grow, yadda yadda yadda when he was hired by Chelsea.

Sarri called Roberto Mancini a gay slur while Gattuso seems to have been opposed to gay marriage in 2008 (a position shared by, ahem, Barack Obama and Joe Biden at that time). And Sarri made really inappropriate comments to a female reporter whereas Gattuso seems to have once possessed retrograde opinions about whether women should be football executives.
 

DJnVa

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Is there any chance the European press has oversold how close the club and these candidates were?
 

Jimy Hendrix

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Is there any chance the European press has oversold how close the club and these candidates were?
Absolutely, the soccer press is hilariously unreliable.

The process has been messy regardless though, no doubt.
 

Morgan's Magic Snowplow

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Lucien Favre is still without a club and apparently in talks with Palace. I think he’d be a pretty solid selection under the circumstances. Things tend to go pear shaped for him eventually but he has a track record of getting pretty good initial results with clubs, working with younger players, and playing good stuff.
 

Zososoxfan

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nao_russell: "Why is Jurgen Klinsmann not being seriously considered?"

Alasdair says:
Because his record as a club manager was pretty brief and horrendous. I did a piece on him that you can find right here. It was telling yesterday on the BBC that he admitted he rang Daniel Levy and then never heard back again. Absolute legend of a player, including his two spells at Spurs, but as a club coach he's not the answer to any question.
Big ooooooof

https://www.football.london/tottenham-hotspur-fc/news/new-tottenham-manager-latest-nuno-20857853.amp?__twitter_impression=true


As I've said before, this is a laughably bad process from a professionalism standpoint, but it can still be salvaged with the hire of Ten Haag, Potter, Gallardo, or a number of other managers, but time is definitely getting short. It seems like Levy hired a DoF who wants more defensive stability and can't square that with the promise of more attacking football, although I question whether Levy actually cares about that promise.
 

Jimy Hendrix

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Apparently it's not £100 million *plus* players, but £100 million in total value potentially *including* players.

Not that Levy was ever going to just accept a first offer, but that does make the refusal make that much more sense.
 

DJnVa

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Apparently it's not £100 million *plus* players, but £100 million in total value potentially *including* players.
One tweet says £100 million guaranteed as fee. The other says £100 million plus players.

Where are you seeing that the £100 million is value as opposed to fee? I mean, Sterling is listed as £90 million on Transfermarkt--surely it's not an offer of Sterling and £10 million.