Pundit ‘worried’ about what Conte’s recent comments could hint about his future

Chris Sutton has said that Antonio Conte’s comments following the North London derby loss potentially point to the Italian’s days at Tottenham being numbered.

It was a familiar script at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday with Spurs making a lacklustre start to the game and conceding first yet again, courtesy of another mistake from Hugo Lloris.

Hugo Lloris
(Photo by James Williamson – AMA/Getty Images)

Arsenal then scored a second not too long after, leaving the home side with a mountain to climb in the second half.

As we have come to expect from Conte’s men, they did fight back after the interval and put pressure on the away side but Aaron Ramsdale stood firm and denied them a way back into the game.

The defeat saw Spurs fall five points behind the Champions League spots, which does not make for pretty reading, particularly with a trip to the Etihad up next.

Conte insisted after the game that he was pleased with the ‘big effort’ he saw from his players and talked in glowing terms about their second-half display (Football.London).

Sutton questioned why Tottenham do not start games with the same intensity that they often show in the second half.

The former Celtic striker told BBC Five Live Sport’s The Monday Night Club (16/01/23) “I heard Conte talking after the game, and I was slightly worried about the way he talked after the game because he wasn’t making a lot of excuses.

“I hope that doesn’t mean that he’s going to end up walking away from Spurs, because he normally has a lengthy excuse book. The players are tired, this that and the other, we need another two or three windows.

“But he said that they took a risk, or they started to risk more in the second half but that’s been a trend that they have gone behind in a lot of games as of late, so why don’t they risk from the start of games?”

Spurs Web Opinion

Conte has tended to be quite measured in his responses to defeats this season, which was not always the case last campaign. The fact that the Italian seems to be pleased with the performances, is actually more worrying as it suggests that his game plan is simply not working, rather than it being a case of the players not carrying it out correctly.

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