Ex-Manager watch: Antonio Conte

[Cel]

Eek, apologies. Edited.

Yes, possibly. The frustration was simmering...

Possible also that they're having their own new manager bounce

Both to be fair. Losing at home to a lesser team is never great, but we were outplayed, which is just not fun. You can take teams coming to your patch and grinding out results, but it was an easy win for Villa that day.

 

[Spursfan1414]

you have been going on and on and on for 5-10 pages now, banging the conte is not blameless drum.
sure, it can be argued that conte could have done things differently.
but, like many others who are trying to put blame on conte, you are focusing on what he had to do, as opposed to what alternatives does he have?

to play 4 at the back means to trust 2 of romero, dier, lenglet, sanchez, tanganga to play in a 2. Conte asked for a specialist CB, like a romero, because a SOLID DEFENCE is his hallmark and the base in which to set the foundation upon. He got Lenglet. And Romero only started 3-4 matches so far because of injury. You would trust Dier Sanchez in a back 2 just to allow Emerson to play RB?

Worse, then who would play at LB then? Davies, Sess, Perisic, White. Really? Davies as the LB?

While knowing that the CM you can most likely rely on consistently is PEH? Who is a great organiser / leader but has no pace and gets beaten far too easily?

And then not forgetting about injuries. sure we did sign Bissouma, Richarlison, Perisic and Lenglet + Bentacur, Kulusevski and Romero season prior. How many times have we been able to play Hugo, Romero Dier Lenglet, Doherty PEH Bentacur Perisic Kulusevski Kane Son as the starting XI with Bissouma, Richarlison on the bench?

you mention emerson. wat other option does he have, with doherty injured and spence not up to par? your retort, then play him as RB and play 4 at the back to take advantage of his defensive capabilities and hide his attacking frailties. fair point if considered on its own. but football is XI players. And he has not started Emerson in the league for a while now.

And in case we had short memories, this was first 6 EPL fixtures all with Emerson starting as RWB (unbeaten in all 6)
Saints 4-1 home win
Chelsea 2-2 away draw
Wolves 1-0 home win
Forest 2-0 away win
Spam 1-1 away draw
Fulham 2-1 home win

7th fixture, Perisic at RWB, Emerson enters the fray with us 3-2 up and we go on to win 6-2 at home against Leicester

8th fixture, we then lost the NLD 3-1 away with Emerson red carded, and fans (including myself honestly) seeing the silver lining of us not having to play Emerson for 3 matches.

GPV passes on 6 Oct 2022, with us drawing 0-0 away at Frankfurt on 5 Oct 2022, squad no doubt knowing that he isnt with us.

9th fixture, we carve out a 1-0 away win at Brighton, no mean feat, playing a 3-5-2 for the first time.

We reverted to 3-4-3 and beat a hapless Everton 2-0 at home.

At this point, most would say that we are still doing decent. Performances not the best, but we are up there or there abouts, and just about managing to scrape through with the injuries piling up.

We repeated the 3-5-2 in 11th fixture against Man U, and lost 2-0

The following pre and post World Cup fixtures, coinciding with the freak streak of us conceding first (starting at Man U above), the rise of Newcastle, coupled with Arsenal perched at the top of the table, losing consecutively to top 4 rivals, made things look bleak. Emerson starts and 3-4-3 unless otherwise indicated.
Lost 2-1 away at Newcastle
Drew 1-1 away at Sporting (Doherty)
Won 3-2 fortunately, away at B'mouth (352)
Won 2-1 away at Marseille (Sessegnon)
Lost 2-1 away to a Liverpool in poor form themselves (352)
Lost 2-0 to Forest in EFL cup where we were so poor (352, Doherty)
Beat Leeds 4-3 at home in last EPL game before WC
Drew 2-2 at home to Brentford on Boxing Day, first match post WC (Doherty)
Beat Aston Villa 2-0 home (Doc) and Palace 4-0 away (Doc), and Portsmouth 1-0 in 2023 before our 2-0 loss at home NLD (Doherty)

So we lost against Newcastle (away), Man U (away), Liverpool (away), Arsenal (home and away) in the league, and Sporting and Forest 2-0 away in both Champs League and EFL cup.

Only 1 point in 18 against our rivals, dire first half football, newcastle's + man u's + arsenal's form, losing NLD at home and this current frustration with lack of progress on transfers (and Conte's contract / Levy games) are reasons for this very negative, pessimistic sentiment. Worse, we have City to come, twice in quick succession, and soon, Milan. So it's completely understand why this thread grows by 30-60 pages per day. Coming fortnight could really make or break this season / club (Conte / Kane).

Is there hope that Levy / Board / ENIC / Club / Investors can come to their senses and back the Manager? With players coming back to full fitness, and with a couple of additions, we can really turn this around!

If you’d actually read my “banging on for 10 pages”, you’d know I’ve said several times about what I want him to do differently, or what a more adaptable coach would do. In fact, I know you have, because you reacted to some of them.

Playing 4 vs 5 at the back does not automatically make you worse or less defensive. It allows you to put another man in midfield, which gives you more control and means you can stop attacks before your weaker defensive players even have to get involved.

And you don’t have to play 2 CBs with 4 at the back. We could play 3 and play one as a defensive fullback, like Arsenal and City both do and still have a third midfielder. Put Romero there, Davies did it under Mourinho, Emerson could definitely do it.

And I’m sorry but you can quote all the results you want at me, we’ve been shit all season. We survived early on through set pieces and coming back in the last 20 after getting played off the pitch. The system has not functioned the way Conte has intended all season.

 

[$hoguN]

Yes the squad are currently underperforming for Conte, but the crux of the issue is that you don’t sign a manager like conte unless you are going to back him. It was clear to us all that our back line needed the most work but we haven’t pushed through to make that happen.

I won’t judge Conte fully until we have given him the players he wants.

the fact he hasn’t walked tells you he wants to do it for the club and the fans. Anger should go at Levy not Conte as the squad issues have been here since Pochettino

 

[jimbo]

Maybe this is what Conte was referring to in his press conference so, we've also got a shit DoF so it's not only his fault we're shit.

But on a serious note, that's the one constant that we've had under Enic/Levy is a DoF, is there any real advantage to it? It's basically just another layer of management to separate the lad at the top from any shit show below.

I think it depends a bit on whether you count Hitchen as a DoF or not? I’d lean towards not, so that from my memory we’ve had Arnesen, Baldini, Comolli and Paratici with big gaps in between. It feels part of the whole inconsistency of approach thing to me. I remember Redknapp and Pochettino especially being anti-DoF and those were probably our best times.

It’s crazy when you think about all the managers we’ve had and how different they each are to the others in almost every conceivable way.
Hoddle-Santini-Jol-Ramos-Redknapp-AVB-Sherwood-Pochettino-Mourinho-Nuno-Conte. It’s hard to pick out much of a consistent theme there!

 

[Mackan110]

No point comparing ourselves to Barca.
Arsenal, Ajax Dortmund maybe.
but let’s be realistic. There are several PL teams with joined up thinking across the age groups so that youth teams feed into the first team, and the hiring of managers provides some level of continuity.
It’s really only us that flip flops between approaches. And why is that? Because we lack the overall vision from the top because we’ve always been looking over the fence at what everyone else has, rather than fashioning our own style.
it all comes down to the ego of one man.

I took Barcelona as an example because there you can see it so easy. Have used Ajax a couple of times as well and it seems you and I think exactly the same!
I'm wondering how much power Levy has? Because it seems like the board don't say or do anything and Levy can act as he want ?

If he really cares about the club and ofc the money I don't understand why he won't look at other teams and "copying" them. He don't have to spend 300m + each window if he would just have a philosophy and take care of the Youth.

I was really happy when Conte joined because i saw an opportunity that we could actually win because the ITK was that Levy will back him (if I'm correct) but as so often it all falls like a house of cards and now Conte gets the blame while Levy is safe...

 

[God&Texas]

What you do is identify early, other managers who can play a system with those players you've bought. It's what every well run club that's not an Elite club does. That right there is the problem fans thinking that every manager change requires a whole new squad rebuild, that's the position Enic have brought us to. I keep seeing posts saying we should appoint this manager or that manager because look at what they are doing at Brighton for example, but completely missing the point that that manager has gone into a side already kitted out for them. What we do is we buy all the ingredients for fine French cuisine then bring in an Michelin starred chef who cooks Asian food. We then start to bring in the right ingredients for him and replace him with a Mexican chef who now has a pantry full of Truffles and Bok Choi. We need to decide what we want and then bring in managers who know how to work with the ingredients at their disposal. There is a reason it took Pep, Klopp, hell even Atreta 2-3 years to achieve anything of note because they had to get the right players in first.

We need to back a horse and bloody stick with it regardless of whether or not it's painless at times, because this chop change shit has proved time and again to be completely fruitless. Until we do that we'll always struggle because we will never have the wealth of talent Chelsea did when the kept changing things up.

Absolutely agree that we need to pick a cuisine. So many of the issues the club have created for themselves in the past decade are tied to the seemingly reactive was decisions have been made. Appointments of managers and staff and player recruitment has had no continuous unifying theme which would allow us to build from one tenure to the next (more) smoothly as opposed to the same 12-18 month cycle so many here are rightly lambasting.

What I don't agree with is choosing Conte to roughly define that by allowing him to continue and starting this process with him. Even ignoring the joy of watching the football, choosing this as the basis for the new on-going plan limits the choices and potential moving forward. If the plan is to keep him around and spend over two windows to build a team to do the same thing we have seen for the last 4 months but better; I see no reason to be optimistic of the club direction when Conte does inevitably some day leave. Can anyone argue that there are others who would be tailor made to step into that system and keep us moving in the same direction? Could we reliably keep the quality of player needed for its success with the limited pool of players that system is drawing from? This even assumes Conte commits and the team rediscovers some success.

I think most agree a direction is needed, a club philosophy implemented. I think the supporters are clear on what philosophy they would prefer. We can lament that this hasn't been in place for the last 20 years but with that failed, the best time to start is today.

I don't want Levy defining this but don't know how to effect that change. I'd argue to start the change now and continue to hound Levy out after.

 

[Joshua shepherd]

Not signalling anyone out here, but a few have latched onto this notion that Conte has a proven system, likes it's a magic formula or something that can't fail.
Pretty sure there was a similar notion about Jose at some point, think there was a similar myth surrounding Jack Charlton's style for Ireland in the 90's.
Thing is these systems get found out pretty quickly and football moves on. Hence a good coach is one who doesn't stick to a "proven" formula and is always looking to challenge their opponent. Fact is any half decent coach setting up a team to play Spurs know what they're going up against every time.

I don’t disagree, peps time at city has been so good because he’s constantly developed the way they play. Their style now is so far from Sterling and Sane tapping it in at the back post from a few years ago.

The point is if you gave Conte the tools to play in the 343 that he wants to, it would either work completely, or he could tinker with it so that it works in this day and age, like he did when he started playing Eriksen for inter.

What you’re asking him to do is play a formation that a) he doesn’t believe is the best way to play, and b) that the players we have aren’t even suited to. A back 4 with our current players would be a disaster, as it was with nuno, Jose and poch before.

 

[stormfly]

I just can’t be bothered with the whole new manager cycle again if nothing else changes. We waited patiently for the stadium build as it was meant to be a springboard to greater things yet we are still miles away from looking like a squad that can compete. Loads of average players on high wages that we can’t shift. Letting players that could have gone for 100m once go for next to nothing (Dele).

The board that has no strategy and won’t put their hands in their pockets and they keep using the excuse that they need to get players off the books first which would be fine if they were new owners but they bought the bloody players in the first place. All we ever hear are excuses and I’m just waiting for it all to be ‘the managers fault’ so we can rinse and repeat and buy Levy another few years. It seems we have been sold a lie with the new stadium and annoyingly if we stayed at WHL for another year or two we could already have been Prem Champions.

 

[rossdapep]

I'd like to see Conte be given a few players that not only play to his strength but have a nasty streak about them.

I believe we never got over the line under Poch because the players were too 'nice' and a bit meek.

Richarlison calling out and confronting Ramsdale is the sort of stuff you want to see because it creates intimidation at home and bravery away from home.

You can't let your rivals come on your turf and do that shit.

4 or 5 nasty fuckers or players that won't lie down will create a strong resolve in the team.

We only really have Richy and Romero that won't take shit.

 

[cjbyid]

I'd like to see Conte be given a few players that not only play to his strength but have a nasty streak about them.

I believe we never got over the line under Poch because the players were too 'nice' and a bit meek.

Richarlison calling out and confronting Ramsdale is the sort of stuff you want to see because it creates intimidation at home and bravery away from home.

You can't let your rivals come on your turf and do that shit.

4 or 5 nasty fuckers or players that won't lie down will create a strong resolve in the team.

We only really have Richy and Romero that won't take shit.

Yeah for as long as I rememeber supporting spurs we've always had a 'nice' team.

Apart from the players you mentioned at the bottom the rest wouldn't harm a fly.

Richy would fight himself if it came to it.

 

[Joely]

I just can’t be bothered with the whole new manager cycle again if nothing else changes.

Yup, bored of it and I'd say the first time I couldn't give a shit who comes in if/when Conte goes. Quite clear we have a ceiling under ENIC and we may punch above our weight every now and again but it'll never be built on and ultimately just proves to be an exception to the rule. Never in the 22 years of ENIC have I got the sense they want us to be regularly competing for the League. The 'must have' in their eyes is competing/qualifying for the CL and pulling in the extra revenue from it, winning silverware is a 'nice to have' but will never be a priority.

 

[Caco]

I don’t disagree, peps time at city has been so good because he’s constantly developed the way they play. Their style now is so far from Sterling and Sane tapping it in at the back post from a few years ago.

The point is if you gave Conte the tools to play in the 343 that he wants to, it would either work completely, or he could tinker with it so that it works in this day and age, like he did when he started playing Eriksen for inter.

What you’re asking him to do is play a formation that a) he doesn’t believe is the best way to play, and b) that the players we have aren’t even suited to. A back 4 with our current players would be a disaster, as it was with nuno, Jose and poch before.

I agree on the back 4, biggest issue we've had recently is the two in midfield being over run, worse still that he keeps on doing it game after game. I know he's tried the 3-5-2 and it hasn't worked but he only played that formation when his hand was forced with attacking injuries, so that contributed to the system not being effective.
I said it before that I'd like to see a 3-5-2 with Son and Richarlison up front for a change, more as they've a lot more pace and it'd give other teams something to think about, other than get tight on Kane and have three in midfield and you're in with a great shout of taking a two goal lead and possibly 3 points.

 

[Spursfan1414]

I'd like to see Conte be given a few players that not only play to his strength but have a nasty streak about them.

I believe we never got over the line under Poch because the players were too 'nice' and a bit meek.

Richarlison calling out and confronting Ramsdale is the sort of stuff you want to see because it creates intimidation at home and bravery away from home.

You can't let your rivals come on your turf and do that shit.

4 or 5 nasty fuckers or players that won't lie down will create a strong resolve in the team.

We only really have Richy and Romero that won't take shit.

I hear this a lot and I’ve never really understood where it came from.

Poch’s Spurs were responsible for probably the nastiest PL game of the last 10 years in the Battle of the Bridge.

We had Lamela, Dele, Rose and Dier who were all definite shithouses. Dembele and Wanyama were both quite happy to get involved too.

Did Leicester have more nasty players than us when they won the title? Who did Chelsea have outside of Costa and Luiz?

Genuine question, I know a lot of people feel this way but it doesn’t make much sense to me.

 

[SPURSLIFE]

Personally I don't think Levy will sanction any big moves unless Conte signs a contract extension. He's not likely to release funds if he thinks the manager is going to leave and Conte isn't going to sign if he doesn't get the players he wants. It's a stand off and it needs one of them to take a leap of faith. My feeling is that it's more likely that Conte leaves than Levy giving him what he wants.

 

[Rogmeister]

I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve supporting both Tottenham and England. Fucking pathetic draining Existence ?

 

[only1waddle]

I'd like to see Conte be given a few players that not only play to his strength but have a nasty streak about them.

I believe we never got over the line under Poch because the players were too 'nice' and a bit meek.

Richarlison calling out and confronting Ramsdale is the sort of stuff you want to see because it creates intimidation at home and bravery away from home.

You can't let your rivals come on your turf and do that shit.

4 or 5 nasty fuckers or players that won't lie down will create a strong resolve in the team.

We only really have Richy and Romero that won't take shit.

Bentancur adds another vital characteristic to that, never say die.

 

[WiganSpur]

I'd like to see Conte be given a few players that not only play to his strength but have a nasty streak about them.

I believe we never got over the line under Poch because the players were too 'nice' and a bit meek.

Richarlison calling out and confronting Ramsdale is the sort of stuff you want to see because it creates intimidation at home and bravery away from home.

You can't let your rivals come on your turf and do that shit.

4 or 5 nasty fuckers or players that won't lie down will create a strong resolve in the team.

We only really have Richy and Romero that won't take shit.

I always felt our problem under peak Poch was that bar 15 to 16 players the rest of the squad was nowhere near the standard required to even provide cover, never mind challenge which ultimately led to the squad creaking under a heavy fixture load. Then predictably, when some of those top players left or declined they were either replaced with worse players or no players at all.

 

[carpediem1906]

If you’d actually read my “banging on for 10 pages”, you’d know I’ve said several times about what I want him to do differently, or what a more adaptable coach would do. In fact, I know you have, because you reacted to it.

Playing 4 vs 5 at the back does not automatically make you worse or less defensive. It allows you to put another man in midfield, which gives you more control and means you can stop attacks before your weaker defensive players even have to get involved.

And you don’t have to play 2 CBs with 4 at the back. We could play 3 and play one as a defensive fullback, like Arsenal and City both do and still have a third midfielder. Put Romero there, Davies did it under Mourinho, Emerson could definitely do it.

And I’m sorry but you can quote all the results you want at me, we’ve been shit all season. We survived early on through set pieces and coming back in the last 20 after getting played off the pitch. The system has not functioned the way Conte has intended all season.

Like Arsenal and City do? They have been drilled at this for YEARS before it becomes 2nd nature.

As much as Conte's way is rigid, we saw glimpses of it last season when we had Bentacur and Deki combining and suddenly the front 3 are through.

Rem Conte's very non subtle dig at Pep about "counter attacking", with an Instagram post of our goal against City with all players having had a touch, that's Conte ball at its prime, with players who are fully fit and confident.

For whatever reason, this season, Lloris and Dier have had so many errors, and we have had so many injuries to key first XI players - Bentacur, Kulusevski, Romero, Richarlison (depth), Bissouma (depth) - misfiring and injured Son (missing the Liverpool game in which he always shone) - and these meant that Conte-ball couldnt be fully effective.

Take our most recent game, first 10 mins of 1st half and first 15 mins of 2nd half against Arsenal. Things would have been so different if Sessegnon did better with his first 2 opportunities to cross on the left, and he finished that one-two with Kane. Sess could also arguably have been tighter to Saka for their opener, to deflect for a corner instead of towards goal (but it's Hugo's mistake all day long) + Deki had a few shots / crosses unfinished, Son had 1 glorious chance and Kane had one shot and one header, all saved by MOTM Ramsdale.

We had 17 shots, of which 7 were on target. They had 14 shots, of which 5 were on target - on a typical Conte day, we would have scored 2 or 3, and conceded none or 1.

I really don't think it is tactics or formation that is our problem at the moment. Yes they dominated the ball, but did they really carve our midfield apart? I thought Sarr did well, considering. When they had possession, they did not really hurt us. The 3 key moments that were their best chances were Hugo miskicking, Hugo OG, Hugo punting the ball upfield aimlessly leaving Sess n our players out of shape.

Our right side (without Emerson) did not really test them at all in the first half. Deki first match back, had to cut him some slack.

If you say it's energy or motivation or (lack of) confidence or morale, I'd acquiesce that Conte isn't doing enough to instigate improvements. Being a leader at work myself, and having had such a weird 2022 affecting performances, I have to also be realistic and not idealistic (and not compare to our competitors perform) and cut myself / my staff some slack. The amount of disruptions (injuries, deaths, WC), annoying press cons and my guess, frustrating convos with Levy n Board are not helping Conte to be at 100% for sure.

Arteta insisted to his players to trust the process - I laughed when watching Arse's All or Nothing - but you can see that they have built upon the same formation, same tactics for years and he did not change tack or path even when they kept losing and when the players' heads went down.

Why are we asking Conte to change while we praise Arsenal and Arteta for trusting the process?

We need to, LEVY n co needs to TRUST the Conte process too.

Wait for tide to shift. For it will.

Heck, make the blardy tide shift by injecting players fit to immediately impact - much like Deki n Rodrigo last winter - and the upturn will be in sight.

 

[Dakes]

I'd like to see Conte be given a few players that not only play to his strength but have a nasty streak about them.

I believe we never got over the line under Poch because the players were too 'nice' and a bit meek.

Richarlison calling out and confronting Ramsdale is the sort of stuff you want to see because it creates intimidation at home and bravery away from home.

You can't let your rivals come on your turf and do that shit.

4 or 5 nasty fuckers or players that won't lie down will create a strong resolve in the team.

We only really have Richy and Romero that won't take shit.

Spot on. Just thinking about a few of the recent best teams and the players they had of this ilk. Keane, Viera, Ramos, Stam, etc. We had none of that bite.

 

[DanielJohnCosta]

While we are on the topic of having staff explain themselves at the club why doesn’t conte come out and explain why he sticks with a broken formation and refuses to adapt