Antonio Conte has struggled at Tottenham so far but it is not exactly a surprise. Tottenham crashed out of the FA Cup after a 1-0 extra-time defeat to Middlesbrough, making it their sixth loss in the last 10 games.
The FA Cup was Tottenham’s last real hope of winning a trophy this season as they are now out of every cup competition and currently sit seventh in the league, 24 points behind league leaders Manchester City.
Their trophy drought will now most certainly extend to the 15th year, which was the major reason ‘serial winner’ Antonio Conte was hired in the first place, to buck that trend.
Even though the red flags were there from the start, the pressure to get over the poor start under Nuno Espirito Santo and hopefully win something this season led to the appointment of Antonio Conte in November 2021.
But exactly four months into his tenure in North London, most people including Conte can see that this was a mistake on both sides.
To be fair, his appointment was understandable, Tottenham was in ruins and in need of an urgent rebuild and Conte has a solid track record of effectively executing rebuilds within short periods of time.
He took over Juventus in 2011 and won them their first league title in nine years while going unbeaten in the Serie A and restoring the Old Lady’s dominance of Italian football following the Calciopoli scandal.
After three consecutive Serie A titles with Juventus and a two-year stint with the Italian national team, Conte took over a Chelsea team that had finished 10th in the previous Premier League season and turned them to champions in his first season and won the FA Cup in the following season.
After which he went to Inter Milan and won them their first Scudetto in 11 years in only his second season at the club.
With a track record like that, it is easy to see why Tottenham thought he was the right man for the job and he could have been but for one fundamental difference in ideology between his style and Tottenham’s owner, Daniel Levy.
In Conte’s first summer at Juventus, the club signed 15 new players, spending a total of €89 million on high-profile signings like Mirko Vucinic, Alessandro Matri, Arturo Vidal, and of course Andrea Pirlo who joined on a free transfer.
In his first summer as Chelsea manager, Conte spent €133 million on David Luiz, N’golo Kante, Michy Batshuayi, and Marcos Alonso.
Upon arrival at Inter Milan, Conte spent €141 million on seven players, headlined by Romelu Lukaku. They also spent over €14 million on loan signings of Nicolo Barella, Stefano Sensi, Alexis Sanchez, Cristiano Biraghi, not to talk of the free-agent signing of Diego Godin.
Conte then spent another €114 million the following summer in which they went on to win the league. All of this without counting his numerous winter transfer signings.
As evident as Antonio Conte’s track record is, it is also clear that he requires heavy investment to achieve success and when that does not happen, things get messy with him very quickly.
For all of his success with Juventus, Chelsea, and Inter Milan, he left all those places on bad terms, with a pattern of publicly criticizing the higher-ups whenever he does not feel like he has enough backing.
This is what makes it particularly surprising that he took the Tottenham job knowing fully well that Daniel Levy is the type to look for the cheapest possible way to make things happen, the exact opposite of what Conte wants.
Last summer, Levy spent €67 million on three unproven players, Bryan Gil, Emerson Royal, and Pape Sarr in a bid to improve his team that had finished seventh the previous season, that is the kind of environment Conte willingly worked into.
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After only getting Rodrigo Bentacur for €19 million and Dejan Kulusevski on loan in January, Conte is already experiencing firsthand the frustration we all predicted but at a much faster pace.
The classic Antonio Conte press conference meltdown usually happens after his first season when he has already won something at the club, but we are witnessing it after just four months at Tottenham.
He only signed an 18-month contract which indicates that he was not entirely convinced by the project either, his contract is set up for him to be able to leave with ease if he is not satisfied after his first full season.
This means the next summer transfer window is potentially a make or break for Antonio Conte and Daniel Levy’s relationship.
But for all the talk of Conte’s track record, Levy’s track record is very clear too, he does not like to spend which is what makes this appointment a bad fit in the first place.
