Conte: Tottenham rebuild is biggest challenge of my career

Martin Macdonald

2 Dec 2021 10:07 GMT
3 min read

Antonio Conte, Chelsea, 2020-21 — © ProShots

Tottenham manager Antonio Conte insists the job in North London is the biggest challenge of his career to date.

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At the beginning of November, the former Chelsea boss replaced Nuno Espirito Santo at the helm at Tottenham, eventually joining the club after negotiations broke down the previous summer.

Conte joined with the team in a slump, and recently oversaw a shock defeat in the Europe Conference against competition Minnows FC Mura.

In the league, he has drawn with Everton and earned a narrow 2-1 victory versus Leeds.

Tottenham are currently ninth in the league, though only five points off the top four, and Conte believes he faces a herculean task to get the club back to elite status.

"Biggest challenge, yes. But as I said in Mura, I'm not scared about this," he said when previewing Tottenham's Premier League clash with Brentford.

"I have a lot of enthusiasm. When I arrive here, I enjoy the situation. I enjoy to work with the players, I enjoy to speak with the club, I enjoy to create a good base. Now the most important thing is this - to create a good base and then to build something important.

"We need a bit of time but I'm sure we can improve a lot and give satisfaction to our fans. But this is a big challenge for me. This is a big challenge for the club. This is a big challenge for the players. For everybody."

Have standards slipped at Tottenham?

Under Mauricio Pochettino, Tottenham eventually became contenders for the Premier League and even reached their first ever Champions League final where they were defeated by Liverpool.

Since that final, their performances have dropped, with neither Jose Mourinho nor Nuno able to stop the slump.

Conte insists standards overall have slipped since he was an opposition manager with Chelsea.

"The club, in the last years, has been slipping," he said. "If I compare Tottenham to when I was in Chelsea, Tottenham was very, very competitive, was a really, really strong team.

Harry Kane, Tottenham, Premier League, 2021/22 — © ProShots

"And I think that to lose important players or someone became old and then to have a change of generation, I think Tottenham now is paying a bit of this.

"Now we have to create, to start again. To think that we have to create a solid base and then to build. Because if we don't have a solid base, it's impossible to build something important.

"I think that now is the right moment to create a solid base and then to start to build. To come back to fight for something important as [in] the past.

"I think it must be our target but this target has to involve all - the club, the players. I think also our fans.

"I understand that sometimes they lose their patience but I repeat I am here to put myself totally for Tottenham and to work 24 hours for this club because this a big challenge for me - maybe the best, big challenge, about the difficulty - about the position that we are starting."

Conte has enjoyed success at every club he has coached, winning the Premier League with Chelsea and Serie A with Juventus and Inter.