Conte’s historic meltdown as Spurs lose again

Carlo Garganese

• 13 Feb 2022 18:12 GMT
• 4 min read

Antonio Conte is in his worst run as manager for 12 years following yet another defeat to Wolves on Sunday.

Tottenham were soundly beaten at home by Wolves in north London, as first-half goals from Raul Jimenez and Leander Dendoncker inflicted a 2-0 loss on Spurs.

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This was Tottenham’s third straight Premier League defeat in a row under Conte, following on from the dramatic 3-2 home defeat to Southampton on Wednesday and the comprehensive 2-0 loss to Chelsea.

This losing streak is Conte’s worst since the 2009-10 season when he was the manager of Atalanta. That is the last time that Conte has lost three league games in a row.

And it is a streak that has proved very costly in Tottenham’s bid to qualify for the Champions League.

They have now slipped to eighth place in the Premier League, very much handing over the advantage to rivals Arsenal in the chasing of current fourth-placed West Ham, as well as Manchester United.

There was great enthusiasm at Tottenham as recently as January as Conte embarked on a wonderful unbeaten start in the Premier League after taking over at the beginning of November.

He didn’t lose any of his first nine Premier League games in charge and had particularly impressed in a 2-2 home draw versus Liverpool.

But after pleading for January signings, Conte was let down in the winter transfer window.

He had asked for a right-wing back, a centre back, a centre midfielder and a forward.

Between them, sporting director Fabio Paratici and owner Daniel Levy missed out on all of Conte’s main targets; namely Franck Kessie, Adama Traore and Luis Diaz. The latter two signed for Barcelona (on loan) and Liverpool instead.

Subsequently, Spurs were forced into a late dash and signed Juventus squad players Rodrigo Bentancur and Dejan Kulusevski for a heavily inflated fee that could reach €70 million. These are two players who couldn’t even get into the worst Juventus team in over a decade – hardly a ringing endorsement.

A right wing-back and a centre back did not arrive, full stop.

That disappointment from the market has seeped into Spurs’ recent form.

They were thoroughly outplayed versus Chelsea and Southampton, while against Wolves they only reacted in the last 30 minutes.

This is a Spurs team full of holes and individual weaknesses and it will be among Conte’s greatest achievements if he manages to take such a limited team into the Champions League.

Harry Kane took to Twitter after the match to express his disappointment at the performances and results this week.

“A tough and disappointing week,” wrote Kane.

“No words will make up for it, we have to keeping working hard and make sure we are ready for the games ahead.”

It won’t get any easier for Conte and Spurs in their next game as they will face Man City at the Etihad on Saturday.