Former Liverpool defender Steve Nicol has praised Antonio Conte over how he dealt with Richarlison’s public outburst over his lack of regular game time since joining Tottenham Hotspur.
The Brazilian conducted an interview following Tottenham’s Champions League exit to AC Milan in midweek in which he accused the head coach and his coaching staff of breaking promises over starts
Richarlison only came on during the European tie in the 70th minute with Spurs looking to overturn the 1-0 aggregate advantage held by the Italian outfit and admitted afterward that he was given no explanation for his lack of minutes in the loss at Wolves and was told by the coaching staff he would start against Milan.
Conte certainly did not hold back with his assessment when quizzed during Friday’s pre-match press conference about Richarlison when he agreed that the forward has not been good enough since making the switch to N17 from Everton in the summer.
He told Football.London: “First of all I watched the interview of Richarlison and he didn’t criticise me. He said my season is (swears) and he is right because his season is no good. Because he had a lot of injuries. He started well with us, he then had injury in the Champions League and then he went to World Cup and he had another serious injury. He came back and stayed one month out. Then another injury.
“He scored zero goals with us, only two goals in Champions League and I think the guy was really honest to tell that his season is not good. His season and our season has still not finished and he has time to recover. If he deserves to play, I give him opportunity otherwise we will play another player.
“Then if you ask me for rest of interview I think that the guy understood very well that he made mistake because when you speak with ‘I, I and I’, not with us, it means you are thinking only about yourself and you are selfish.
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“For this reason I analysed this situation and to repeat to my players that if we want to build something important, if you want to try to fight for something important, if we want to fight to be competitive and to win a trophy, you have to speak with ‘we’ and not with ‘I”. Because if we speak ‘I, I and I’, it means that you are only thinking only about yourself and not the others and club.
The guy understood very well and he apologised and for me it was good because I had an opportunity to clarify for another time the importance of the spirit of the team. Because the pitch is important, tactics are important, but the spirit and desire to fight and the fire in your eyes is too much important than the other situation. It was important for me to underline again this situation to my players because for sure in this aspect we have to improve, to improve a lot, to be more team, and to show more spirit positive to help each other especially in negative moments.
“I have good guys but sometimes it is not enough to be a good guy. Sometimes you have to show right desire, sacrifice to yourself to fight to win the game, to win the duals, yeah to be nasty and yeah I think sometimes we are a bit soft.
“But I am the coach and the first responsible about this situation when it happen because doesn’t happen every time but I have to improve the team and also I have to improve the spirit of my team. It always happen in the past and I hope to happen also here.”
Conte gave Richarlison the start he was craving in Saturday’s Premier League clash against Nottingham Forest and the striker looked to have immediately repaid the faith shown in him by the Italian when he netted inside the first three minutes, only for the goal to be chalked off by VAR.
Despite the disappointment, the Brazilian international put in a good shift and played key roles in all three of Tottenham’s goals, including winning a penalty and providing the assist for Heung-min Son’s goal to cap off the 3-1 win.
Nicol told ESPN when asked about how Conte had handled the situation: “Perfect. Absolutely. ‘Go on then. You told me you should be playing. Go on then, you better play well’. Richarlison’s gone: ‘Right, I’m going to show him’. And in Conte’s head, he’s going: ‘Right, go on then. Show me. And if you don’t, I can go, hey, you were the one who wanted to play, you were the one who said this’. So it’s a winner all the way round. It’s a great decision,”
“How many players do that? Richarlison’s wiring a little different. It’s not normal. And sometimes it happens. And this is the perfect cure for it. They both win.”
SpursWeb Opinion
The pressure was on Richarlison to perform on Saturday after his name was included in the starting eleven ahead of Dejan Kulusevski and he did not disappoint.
He can find himself harshly done by with the finest of VAR calls which denied him his first top flight goal for Spurs and will be hoping to keep his place in the side for Saturday’s trip to Southampton prior to the international break.
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