Antonio Conte is leading Spurs through a rather paradoxical season in that nobody is certain how good they are.
In many ways, Tottenham are having a fantastic season. In fact, Antonio Conte has led the team to their best ever start in the Premier League.
They currently sit third in the table and only Manchester City and Arsenal have scored more goals than them. Harry Kane has scored ten league goals, and no longer appears to want to leave the club.
They’ve also just qualified for the knockout stages of the Champions League. Yet people remain unconvinced by Tottenham due to their cautious style of play.
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Sitting back and allowing your world class attackers to hit teams on the break is enough to beat most teams. However, their approach in the big games is a major contributor to the lingering doubts about Spurs.
Craven performances at Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea have seen their game plan exposed. Ultimately, if you allow good teams to attack you for the whole game, they’re probably going to score enough goals to beat you.
There is some mitigation for this in that Dejan Kulusevski, perhaps their most important creator, has been injured. As well as that, no manager in the world could have predicted the loss of form of Heung-min Son.
Perhaps Conte is waiting until the whole squad is available, until after the World Cup break before he unleashes his team. Nobody imagines he has a long term plan, though, because underpinning all this is the narrative that Antonio Conte is a mercenary and will leave Tottenham sooner rather than later.
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A combustible character, Conte may well decide he cannot achieve greatness in North London and leave. However, he does actually have favorable conditions at Tottenham. He has been backed by the board, and rumors suggest he will sign a new contract this season.
Of course, he will wait until the club lets him sign more players in January before committing to anything. He can do this because he has leverage over chairman Daniel Levy, who knows it will be a while before he can hire another coach as good as Conte.
In the end, it will depend on whether Conte feels he can achieve something with Spurs. The fact they cannot compete for the title will hurt him, and he won’t linger at what he feels is a second-rate team forever.
