Antonio Conte cut a distraught figure after Tottenham’s surprise 1 – 0 defeat away to Burnley on Wednesday night.
He is becoming famed for his overly pessimistic assessment of the Spurs squad after every poor result. A certain percentage of this is expected Antonio Conte fare – pressurizing his club to sign players, demanding high standards, etc.
However, it appears Antonio Conte is experiencing a larger crisis at Tottenham. He is a man who considers himself a serial winner, and appeared to suggest he could be about to leave the club.
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He didn’t sound as if he was about to storm out, though. He repeated several times that there will inevitably be an ‘assessment’ about him. As if four defeats in five games is so egregious that the club will fire him.
Obviously, Conte knew what he was getting into with Spurs. There is no way he couldn’t have, but he seems genuinely flabbergasted to find himself in a losing environment, an average environment.
Did he think, ‘I’m Antonio Conte, so when I take charge of the team, they will win’? The possibility that it would be difficult for him at Spurs seems to simply not have occurred to him.
It’s a ridiculous contradiction, one that people unfamiliar with eliteness struggle to get their heads around. Conte considers himself a winner, but not such a winner that he can’t turn a poor team around?
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Last night he remarked, ‘Maybe I’m not so good.’ Are we to believe Spurs’ mediocrity has triggered a crisis of identity for the Italian? That a man who, up until this point in his life has carried the egotistical weight of the intrinsic belief that he is a winner, now doubts himself? Because of Tottenham?
As an Arsenal fan, this is glorious fodder. Either he will leave Tottenham, damaging their top four chances, or he will remain and continue to dissolve after every bad result. Either way, I can’t take my eyes off of it.
