Tottenham Hotspur’s assistant manager Cristian Stellini has been speaking to the press ahead of the weekend’s action and has revealed whether he altered Antonio Conte’s tactics for the Manchester City game.
The club announced Conte had been experiencing abdominal pain and was diagnosed with cholecystitis last week, the 53-year-old underwent surgery back in Italy and has been recovering since after a successful operation to remove his gallbladder.
In his absence, Stellini has taken charge of training, press conferences, and of course, the big game at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium last Sunday, which saw Spurs come away with all three points after a hard-earned 1-0 win against City.
Conte flew back to the UK yesterday and there’s a good chance the 53-year-old will be in the dugout again for the trip to the King Power Stadium as Spurs take on Leicester City on Saturday afternoon (Daily Mail).
Fans are still praising the performance from Spurs last weekend and the press wanted to know if that was down to Stellini putting his own stamp on things when it comes to tactics.
In response, Stellini told Football.London: “Our tactics came from what Antonio wanted. We continued that.”
“Me and Ryan Mason, we spoke immediately during the game that we needed to change something and we decided to have Eric Dier being more aggressive in dealing with Bernardo Silva (who was operating between the lines) and that is all we changed,” he added.
Spurs Web Opinion
To be fair to Stellini and Mason, that one change of pushing Dier further up the field was absolutely pivotal to the way the whole team operated on the day against City and I do think it was a big factor in allowing us to keep tight and win the game. So, well done Stellini, the tactical changes worked perfectly.