Many wondered how long it would be before Antonio Conte would begin making noises of discontent during his press conferences at Spurs. As it turns out, it would only be a few months. Indeed, based on historical precedent, however positive the start of a relationship is between Tottenham Hotspur chairman Daniel Levy and whoever he puts in charge, the novelty begins to fade rather quickly. Now, you wouldn’t say the Spurs hot seat is cursed, but it’s becoming increasingly evident that working under Levy brings with it its own frustrations.
You only need to look at what happened with Mauricio Pochettino, current PSG manager, to understand that every relationship under Levy has a sell-by date. Over Pochettino’s five years at Spurs, it was widely known that Pochettino and Levy were good friends before Spurs sacked him.
In this instance, it’s important to note that the Argentinian is a very astute manager, he is after all in charge of a PSG team that is currently priced at 23/2 as the fifth-favourites in the latest UEFA Champions League odds from Betfair.
If you look up the recent Champions League bets predictions, you’ll see the experts are hardly ruling out Pochettino’s side winning Europe’s greatest club showpiece.
As briefly touched on, this is an important factor to consider when assessing the merits of his Spurs dismissal and ultimately what went wrong. As we can see, the 49-year-old knows how to compete at the business end of the European competition, but he lost the desire to manage Spurs after Levy refused to help him build a new team after the 2019 Champions League final loss to Liverpool. Needless to say, losing that hunger at Spurs saw results tumble and eventually resulted in his sacking.
BREAKING: Mauricio Pochettino has left Tottenham Hotspur. pic.twitter.com/JDjD0Uo7gc
— GOAL (@goal) November 19, 2019
Even Levy would even agree today that not opening the purse strings for Pochettino was a mistake after the miracles he performed at White Hart Lane. This is why Conte’s annoyance and a subsequent warning shot across the bow to Levy in the form of the Italian telling a room of journalists that he prefers to live in the moment and not talk about his Spurs future, was peculiar as you would have reasoned that by now Levy had learned some kind of lesson after the Pochettino saga.
🗣 “I signed a contract for the end of this season.”#THFC boss Antonio Conte said that he liked to live in the present when asked about his future at the club and provided no guarantees for the future. pic.twitter.com/GZ74qjQyZo
— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) January 15, 2022
Furthermore, a quick look at the Premier League table suggests that Conte has righted the Spurs ship and has them well lined up to qualify for the Champions League next season. This would be an achievement that would bring a huge amount of breathing room to Tottenham Hotspur and a much-needed financial injection. So you go back to Conte’s apparent irritation with life at White Hart Lane and wonder what Daniel Levy could be doing to ease his concerns, given that Tottenham are seemingly on the way back to mixing it with Europe’s elite with Conte at the helm.
It’s an odd situation and one that desperately needs some light shone on it but regrettably, logic will tell you that if Conte is already feeling aggrieved after only two months under Levy, then it is ultimately not a relationship that is predicted to last.
