Antonio Conte’s Tottenham conundrum

Antonio Conte’s Tottenham problem is basically his predecessors

The current problem in north London does not involve Arsenal, but Tottenham. Spurs might have Antonio Conte, Harry Kane and so many other well-known and well-respected footballers, but they are inevitably still the same club.

Since a remarkable 2018-19 Champions League tournament in which Tottenham fell to Liverpool in the finals, things have completely fallen to bits.

Mauricio Pochettino was sacked the following campaign for a lackluster start after receiving little to no help in the transfer window. He was replaced by the “Special One,” Jose Mourinho, who promptly kept the team in mediocrity the entire time he lasted in north London, which ended in the middle of last season.

Caretaker manager Ryan Mason led the team the rest of that season, earned the Spurs a berth in the Europa Conference League. He was replaced by former Wolves boss Nuno Espirito Santo to start the current season, but that lasted only a few weeks. He was unceremoniously fired.

Antonio Conte was finally, painfully yet inevitably signed. While changes seemed to occur at the club, it appears that an entire reconstruction remains in order.

Tottenham needs a deconstruction and a reconstruction

Names like Harry Kane, Son Heung-min, Steven Bergwijn, Dejan Kulusevski
and Lucas Moura look great and are wonderfully talented players, as are the rest of the players. This team has continued to evolve since the days of Pochettino and that might honestly be a part of the problem.

Son and Kane should be packed off and sold to create a potential rebuild like Aston Villa. With the money that Spurs can receive for each of those two world-class players alone, they could bring in countless young and positive players to challenge with Antonio Conte, or whomever else, moving forward.

Should this team decide to sell more players, including any of those names they’ve recently brought in from the Netherlands and Italy, they will have a remarkable pocketbook to go out to purchase players come this summer. This would be a wise choice for this squad, for while the team is fine, they are not great, and haven’t been anywhere near great since they got rid of their old Argentinian boss.

Therefore, they need to create a new team for whoever is their boss instead of trying to find a boss who can magically make this side what they were once upon a time. As for this season, Conte will get Spurs back into a European spot one way or another, even if it is only the Europa Conference League.

But do Tottenham wish to be perennial ECL contenders? Or do they wish to do, and be, better?

Meanwhile, their old bosses – the ones who are coaching – aren’t doing that much better. Pochettino, while finding success in Paris, has not found that exact success that they demand in the French capital, especially with all the talent and capital that team puts onto the pitch each match.

Rumors suggest Zinedine Zidane could be in the running to replace him as confidence seems to be waning that Pochettino can bring a UCL trophy and keep all the superstars in place together for at least another year.

Jose Mourinho? He is at Roma and Roma is not doing too well either. Unlike PSG, which is too dominant in Ligue 1 but which has exceedingly high expectations, and Tottenham which is always in contention — if always frustrated as well — Roma is in seventh place in the much weaker Serie A. While a chance for European glory will remain for the rest of the year as they chase either a UCL, UEL or ECL birth, they are easily the team with the lowest expectations.

Nuno? He is not actually a manager anywhere right now. Spurs have been chewing up and spitting out bosses over the last few years and it’s time the team realize it might just be the roster and that a new one — with whoever as manager — could be the change that pushes this team back in the proper direction.