Antonio Conte explains his spat with Liverpool coach that led to his yellow card

Antonio Conte has shed light on the incident that saw referee Andy Madley show him a yellow card during the second half of this evening’s match against Liverpool.

With his side having just got a foot back into the game when Harry Kane latched onto a through ball from substitute Dejan Kulusevski to make the score 2-1 in the 70th minute, it appeared that Liverpool were keen to slow the game down to maintain their advantage.

When Liverpool were awarded a throw-in on the right-hand side of the pitch and with Reds assistant Pep Lijnders showing no sign of giving the ball to Andy Robertson, his Tottenham counterpart Cristian Stellini raced to grab another ball and threw it to the right-back to speed up the delay.

Conte raced over to Lijnders to remonstrate and slapped the ball out of his hands and found himself in Madley’s sights with a card being shown in his direction.

The Spurs head coach has been the target of officials in recent weeks, having been shown a red card in the match against Sporting CP and had to watch last week’s win at Marseille from the stands.

Conte told Sky Sports: “Because of the assistant coach of Jurgen, he kept the ball and didn’t want to [give it] but then I clarify quickly after one minute with him. In a sporting war, we are awaiting the ball and he continued to keep but ball but I repeat, everything is ok and I clarify with him and I have great respect for Jurgen and his assistant coach.”

SpursWeb Opinion

Nobody can blame Conte for the way he reacted and he can feel slightly aggrieved that Lijnders escaped a booking for clear and obvious time wasting. It was a frustrating match for Tottenham once again with another slow start and against quality opposition, it is always an uphill task when gifting them a 2-0 advantage.

Spurs just need to get through the next two games with victories in each and return after the World Cup with a clear plan to improve the squad in the winter window.

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