Speaking to ESPN Brazil, Tottenham defender Emerson Royal has given some insight into the gruelling training sessions that Antonio Conte puts his squad through.
Royal struggled to adapt to the demands of Conte’s right-wing-back position following his arrival from Barcelona last summer, despite starting well in a flat back four under Nuno.
However, the Brazilian ended up making 31 league appearances and finished the season strong while covering for the injured Matt Doherty (TransferMarkt).
The 23-year-old’s upturn in form is likely to be attributed largely to his own hard graft and Conte’s consistent tactical guidance and system work. However, the Italian coach is also well renowned for his intensely physical training sessions (ESPN).
Royal verified these reports when speaking to ESPN Brazil this week: “Conte, currently, is like that. He and his coaching staff too, the assistants and the physical coach.
“There are some physical trainings, sometimes we do a strong training, it ends and I finish the training dead
“I arrive at training the next day, and he’s like, ‘Emerson, I didn’t like your training yesterday.’ It’s not possible, then I start to get mad already. ‘How did you not like my training yesterday? I gave life, finished training dead’.
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“But then I’ll check the GPS, I’m fine, better than many, among the best. Then I’ll say ‘look at my GPS’. ‘No, but you can do a lot more’. Then I finish training frustrated.
He comes over ‘you see, that’s how you have to train’. We do the physicals and he just keeps shouting my name. But that’s good, it shows that he wants to help me.”
With recent reports suggesting that Spurs will listen to offers for Royal this summer, he may escape Conte’s extreme sessions sooner rather than later (The Sun).
Spurs Web Opinion
It excites me to think about Conte screaming at the players and making them run incessantly. The almost instantaneous change in fitness that we saw when he took over as manager formed the basis of Spurs’ strong end to the Premier League campaign. I dread to think what horrors he has in store when the team regroups for pre-season in the coming weeks.
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