When Antonio Conte was appointed as Tottenham Hotspur’s new coach in November 2021 one word kept coming up, ubiquitous across every medium. He was a winner. A born winner. Everything he touched, turned to win.
Of course, nobody expected him to win anything in North London, or at least nothing of great significance.
Having lost their way under Jose Mourinho, Tottenham went down several wrong avenues via Nuno Espirito Santo and were now hopelessly adrift in the football betting to even make top four that season.
In the big scheme of things, they were at a bare minimum a level below Manchester City and Liverpool and so the Italian’s main remit was to bring Champions League football to their fabulous new stadium.
This he duly did, hauling and cajoling and scowling his team to fourth come May, an achievement largely pulled off due to banning tomato ketchup and mayonnaise from the club canteen.
Naturally, we are being flippant at this juncture but truly that’s how the work undertaken by a serial title winner was portrayed to us. In other countries, tactics are discussed and the nuances of the game are debated. Over here, the main focus was condiments.
Regardless, Conte had fulfilled his initial mandate and now we all sat back and awaited an awful lot of complaining over the summer – carefully leaked through trusted allies – concerning how unhappy he was at the club’s board and a perceived lack of ambition.
And then inevitably at some point this season Conte would make matters all about himself and heavily allude that he had no intention on extending on his short-term contract.
Both of these things duly came to pass. They were always going to.
🚨 Antonio Conte: “We are not a team. We are eleven players that go into the pitch. I see selfish players, players that don't want to help each other and don't put their heart”. ⚪️ #THFC
— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) March 18, 2023
“Until now I try to hide the situation but now, not anymore”. pic.twitter.com/KsQQGFaGIZ
That Conte is shamelessly self-serving however is not why he is a footballing villain. Nor is it because he throws players under the bus in order to force his board’s arm into buying new and better ones.
It’s not even because he routinely walks from every position or, failing that, he is consistently on the cusp of walking, thus leaving his club in a constant stasis of uncertainty.
In these regards he is merely Jose Mourinho, only without the personality to partly back it up.
No, what makes the suspiciously hirsute, formerly bald manager villainous is the type of football he deploys so as to be a ‘winner’. A sterilised formula completely devoid of style and without scope for improvisation that sends neutrals into a – thankfully metaphorical – coma.
It was the same uninventive, unambitious, functional fare unfortunately viewed at Juventus and Chelsea meaning that for most of the last decade, on any given weekend, a Conte team is on the television and the viewer has a distinct choice.
Do they watch a game that instinctively appeals, hard-wired as we are to be drawn to the prospect of Juventus v Inter, let’s say. Or Spurs v Liverpool.
Or do they study the density and texture of drying paint? It’s a close call.
At Tottenham, Conte sets up with a three at the back and grafters in midfield, overly relying on the scourge of the live betting markets Harry Kane to nick a goal.
And it’s so interminably boring that it will be a huge relief when he finally comes good on his persistent hissyfits and leaves us for elsewhere.
*Credit for all of the photos in this article belongs to AP Photo*
FIRST PUBLISHED: 20th March 2023
