Antonio Conte era at Tottenham already shows signs of familiar trouble - is there a middle ground to be found?

Tottenham Hotspur head coach Antonio Conte is in the news for reasons that might not be considered the best.

Conte gave an interview to Sky Italia in which he seemingly – stop me if you’ve heard this one before – criticised the club’s recent transfer strategy.

In fact, he went a step further and said the club may have weakened the squad in the January transfer window.

“Four players left in January, four important players for Tottenham,” he said. “Two have now come in. Numerically, on paper, you may have ‘weakened’ instead of strengthening.

“Specific choices have been made for lots of reasons, but I definitely never expected four players who I considered to be important players would change teams in January for a number of reasons.”

It is these comments that have attracted a lot of attention; and with good reason. But is he actually wrong in what it is he said? The answer is no.

Conte presser strengthens points made on SSN this morning. Squad ‘weaker’ in terms of numbers but he wanted the four out. Must remember, he’s talking off the back of two bad home defeats. For me, it all comes down to summer recruitment. Make or break. #THFC

— Michael Bridge (@MichaelBridge_) February 18, 2022

Another aspect in which he wasn’t wrong was when he said the team needed experience. For Conte, that is the key to becoming competitive in a quicker fashion.

“It is inevitable that if you want to grow faster and if you want to be competitive more quickly, you also need players with a lot of experience.

“Because they can also lead to an increase in experience across your team.”

Spurs in dire need of overhaul

Antonio Conte can often be brutally honest when it comes to transfer demands. Fans of Juventus, Chelsea and Inter Milan can testify to that. But as far as his public lobbying goes, this is fairly subtle.

The real question, of course, is what this means in the long term for the club. Is it much ado about nothing or a sign of brewing trouble? In truth, it’s a bit of both.

Let’s first address the most obvious elephant in the room – Tottenham need a complete overhaul. That much has been evident since 2019 and continues to be evident in 2022.

So Conte is not entirely wrong in asking for more. Again, that doesn’t mean he’s necessarily in the right either; January is a tough time for mass changes, for the most part.

And part of an overhaul comes from getting rid of players the club have no use for. That is what the club did when farming out Tanguy Ndombele, Giovani Lo Celso, Dele Alli and Bryan Gil.

Conte had no use for them, given they either barely played or made the squads to begin with. So to see them dubbed ‘important players’ now is quite strange.

Similarly, Conte had expressed happiness at the signing of Rodrigo Bentancur and Dejan Kulusevski from Juventus. So to backtrack now and say the team is weakened seems weird.

But rather than take his words at face value, it makes more sense to see them as a public powerplay. It’s the kind of tactic Jose Mourinho tried too; it didn’t work for him, but Conte clearly believes it will.

Yet there’s another reason why it makes little sense for him to suddenly go down this route. Simply put, the Italian was aware of how Spurs operate.

Antonio Conte knew what he signed up for

In fact, he even said as much in this same interview with Sky Italia. “Tottenham are looking for young players, players to develop, not players who are ready now,” he said. “That is what it comes down to.”

Spurs’ business model is built on a model of sustainability. The club have often looked to sign young prospects on the cheap and develop them. That way, any sale could fetch profits and be further re-invested in the squad.

It is a model being adopted more and more around the world. The issue with Spurs is that their lack of movement in that infamous summer transfer window of 2019 has hamstrung them even now.

Still, these are things Antonio Conte was well aware of. So it makes little sense to be bemused at a situation which he willingly signed up for.

And that, perhaps, is where the trouble lies. Did Conte underestimate the challenge of rebuilding Spurs? Is he already itching for a move away to a bigger club?

It is worth noting that his current deal runs only till the end of the 2023 season and he has repeatedly refused to commit his long-term future to the club.

That doesn’t bode well for the team, even if it is obvious the Italian has improved them somewhat in the short term.

The key for both sides would be to find a suitable middle ground, but history doesn’t bode well in that regard on either side.

Conte has previous of leaving teams due to a lack of backing, whereas Spurs chairman Daniel Levy is famously hard-nosed in the way he does business.

But for the long-term future of the club, something has to give – and soon.