Winners and losers of Conte joining Spurs

Stefan Bienkowski

• Updated: 2 Nov 2021 12:54 GMT
• 4 min read

Antonio Conte is now the new Tottenham Hotspur manager, replacing the sacked Nuno Espirito Santo.

The appointment of Conte sends shockwaves through the club and the wider Premier League and, like all new tenures, there will be some that win from the tactician's arrival and some that lose.

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Winner: Harry Kane

While Nuno may have been the subject of most of the hate from Tottenham fans during Saturday’s defeat to Manchester United, Harry Kane certainly received his fair share of booes too.

The England striker may still be overcoming minor injuries or a busy summer period with Euro 2020, but few would doubt that Kane has done the bare minimum at Spurs this season since his transfer request was rejected.

Now, with a top-class manager joining the club, Kane will have an opportunity to get his career back on track with a coach that shares his ambition of winning major trophies.

Loser: Manchester United

Conte is undoubtedly a manager in demand and his decision to make the move to Spurs will mean one club in particular will be missing out on a tremendous tactician: Man Utd.

The Old Trafford side are still nowhere near where they want to be under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and dragging their feet over sacking the Norwegian manager now has seen them miss out on Conte. Which is a truly ridiculous situation for the club to be in.

Winner: Cristian Romero

Few would doubt that Cristian Romero is a great central defender, but the Argentinian talent hasn’t quite been at his best since he made the move from Atalanta in the summer, with just five starts from Tottenham’s first 10 Premier League games of the season.

However, with Conte’s arrival should come a return to a back three for the London club and that’s exactly what allowed Romero to thrive in Serie A in the first place. If any one player could benefit the most from the arrival of the Italian tactician, it could be Romero.

Loser: Manchester City

If Kane really does kick back into gear under Conte and the Italian manager gets Tottenham back on track, that would be nothing short of terrible news for Manchester City.

While the Premier League champions may not have managed to bring Kane to the club in the summer, they would have been hoping to pick up the sulking goalscorer next summer once Spurs had had enough of his bad form. That, most likely, will now change.

Winner: Ole Gunnar Solskjaer

There’s little doubt that few managers in the Premier League seem to have as much good fortune as Solskjaer. Not only did his side save him from the sack with a win over Tottenham on Saturday but they also managed to directly set about a chainreaction that has now led to the very man linked as Solskjaer’s successor ending up at another club.

Whether the Norwegian manager is out of the woods just yet remains to be seen, but he may have bought himself some time with Conte’s appointment at Tottenham.

Loser: Daniel Levy

While Daniel Levy will be cheered by Tottenham fans for managing to bag Conte as the club’s new manager, Conte’s reign at the London club could end up coming back to bite him in the backside.

Like Mauricio Pochettino time at the club, Levy often ends up looking like the bad guy when he has to curtail extremely ambitious managers that demand more money and more power to challenge for major titles.

There’s no doubt that Conte will demand everything he can to get Spurs into a position to challenge in the league or in Europe and when that happens Levy will be the one standing in his way.