Conte should quit moaning and do his job
IT IS not the hardest thing to win a PR battle with Daniel Levy. The Tottenham chairman doesn’t give interviews and doesn’t explain his point of view. If the team wins, it is his manager’s doing. If it doesn’t, it is his fault. Levy is wide open and gets it. But those who know him say he doesn’t largely care. It is business.
So Antonio Conte, intentionally or otherwise, is winning this one for the moment.
The Spurs manager has done a very good job since arriving in November. The team have played well and have a structure, energy and potency that was lost under the two coaches before him, Jose Mourinho and Nuno Espirito Santo.
Conte has made it fun to watch Spurs again, so doubtless fans will be with the 52-year-old as he makes clear his needs for the transfer window. Conte wants to spend on a squad that certainly needs work and if the club doesn’t do that he will be upset.
So far, so clear. But what is less clear is what Conte was told by Levy when he agreed to join the club. This, in fact, is key to the argument.
Conte knows English football. He won the Premier League at Chelsea and is well connected in our game, so he knows what Tottenham traditionally are. He knows they are not in the same financial league as some clubs.
As such, it stands to reason he must have had a conversation about the pounds and pence available for players before he signed his contract. He would have been crazy not to. Yet when he was asked about this on Friday, Conte fudged it. ‘In this moment I think I can’t confirm this,’ he said.
He also ducked a follow up question about whether Levy’s
THE latest trickle of information coming from Manchester United’s training ground is that the club’s star players are not taken with a new coaching staff that draws its experience from Germany, Russia and America rather than the Premier League. Whoever would have thought that?
message in terms of new signings had changed between the start of winter and now.
What we have then is a rather classic managerial game of smoke and mirrors, a situation where a coach is happy for the world to know he wants something but at the same time is unwilling to be drawn into areas where some actual clarity would perhaps emerge.
This happens all the time in football and is not always premeditated. It would be wrong to think Conte is daggers drawn with Levy because he is not. He is just another football manager pushing at the boundaries. Equally, it is worth noting Tottenham are working on deals for players. They hope to sign Adama Traore from Wolves. They are looking at a back-up forward to Harry Kane (when are they ever not doing this?) and a central defender. If nothing comes off, Conte will be within his rights to be disappointed. But in terms of really big signings, it would not be unreasonable for Conte to be told to wait until the summer. The cost of the Covid pandemic has been felt deeply at Tottenham. Conte says he loves the club’s stadium but should be aware it is still being paid for.
THE squad Conte has now is good enough to finish in the top four and it is the manager’s job to get it there. If he does and is not rewarded with proper squad investment, he would be within his rights to wonder what he is doing at the club.
Up until then, he should perhaps concentrate on his side of the business. If Conte was lied to about money in November then Tottenham have a problem. Equally so if the goalposts have subsequently been moved.
But he could have talked about this on Friday and chose not to. So we can draw our own conclusions easily enough.
Ian.Ladyman@dailymail.co.uk