What Antonio Conte’s Silence Suggests About Tottenham Hotspur’s Season

Tottenham Hotspur signing Djed Spence received a rather awkward welcome from his new manager Antonio Conte.

Pictures of the grinning $24 million purchase from Middlesborough in a Spurs shirt had barely been released when the Italian made it clear; the transfer was not his idea.

“Spence is an investment of the club,” Conte was quoted as saying “The club wanted to do it. I said, ‘OK, this player is young but he showed he can become a good, important player for us’. The club decided to buy him.”

It was a rare moment of vocal displeasure in what has been a remarkably quiet summer at Tottenham Hotspur for the former Chelsea manager.

Conte has no problem with publicly kicking off when he feels his club is not investing properly in the squad so the silence can only be a good thing.

It’s not hard to see why he might be satisfied, the “very, very big” transfer list he claimed to have drawn up at the end of last season appears to have been acted upon.

Since the window for buying players opened there have been six new arrivals, including the $72.6 million purchase of Everton’s Richarlison and $30 million Brighton midfielder Yves Bissouma. These acquisitions are in addition to the two signings the club made in January.

The indication, if rumors are to be believed, is that the club, despite spending well over $100 million, is not finished there.

It’s a remarkable vindication of both Conte and managing director of football Fabio Paratici’s vision by chairman Daniel Levy, a man known for driving a hard bargain and often leaving transfer business to the last moments of a window.

Levy is also famous for going a whole summer without signing anyone as the financial pressures of Spurs’ move to a new stadium came to bear.

But this year, Levy reportedly drew down $120 million of a $180 million cash injection raised from the issuing of new shares in the club early for transfers.

Conte: the transfer man

A true test of how satisfied Conte is with the transfer business will be when the season starts and he’s tickled with a bit of adversity.

Last time around when Tottenham Hotspur lost a game he had a habit of blaming the pool of talent available to him.

“Now there is a big difference between us and top teams,” he remarked after a defeat to Chelsea, “I’m proud of the effort of my players. We tried to do everything but sometimes when you try to do everything it’s not enough, especially when you play a team like this. The starting XI has strong players and on the bench.”

Spurs knew when they persuaded the Italian to join them in January, there was likely to be some public venting from the manager, complaints about transfers are as much his signature as the repeated success he has achieved.

In Conte’s career so far, he has signed 438 players for a combined total of $960 million. To put that in perspective, the two other PremierPINC
League-winning managers Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola have both signed roughly half that number.

With close to a thousand games Klopp has managed nearly twice as many as Conte, while Guardiola has coached over 250 more matches, which shows the frequency of these squad overhauls.

The caveat is that Conte has managed more than double the number of different teams as the two other coaches, but it is pretty undeniable that a high player turnover is a feature of his managerial style.

Another is brevity. Only one year remains on the Italian’s contract and Tottenham will know that he has barely managed 100 games at any of the clubs he’s been at. The club stands at a third of that total, so this season will be critical.

What Spurs fans will be wondering is whether the Italian is happy enough with his current crop of players to deliver a title-winning season as he did at Chelsea or more recently Inter Milan.

According to club legend Jurgen Klinsmann, Conte is poised to deliver success this year.

“I’m excited because it’s time to win something. It might be the year. I think we’ve waited long enough,” the German told Sky Sports.

“The foundation is there now. The quality of the squad is there. The hunger of the players is there [and we have an] experienced manager with Conte. He knows what he’s doing. He’s got the pieces now in place that he wanted.”

He might burn through a high number of them, but one thing that can’t be doubted is the expectations Conte will place on his players.

Whilst previous Spurs coaches, like Jose Mourinho and Mauricio Pochettino, did on occasion play down the suggestion that the club could be challenging at the top table, the Italian is making some big statements ahead of the new season.

“It is very important to be stronger than in the past and try to be competitive because we have four competitions and we want to be competitive and have ambition,” Conte said.

“I have ambition and my players want to be ambitious, it’s the same for the club.”

Whether he can deliver with the new signings he’s secured will be a fascinating watch.