Cristian Stellini has insisted that Tottenham are not in a crisis and revealed that he told the players he wants to see them play with a smile on their faces.
The last week has been an extremely tumultuous one at Spurs, with Antonio Conte’s departure followed up just days later by the news that Fabio Paratici has taken an immediate leave of absence from the club following the news of his ban being extended worldwide.
That means Tottenham are now currently without a full-time head coach and director of football, while Harry Kane’s future also remains unresolved.
However, Stellini remarked that calling the situation a ‘crisis’ is an attempt to defame the club, stating that the players are determined to pick up results in their final games of the season.
The interim Spurs head coach told Football.London: “You cannot feel it’s a crisis when you have a club around you, when you have fans around you.
“Crisis is a different thing. Crisis means you cannot play football, when we had Covid, that was a crisis for everyone. It’s a crisis when you don’t have fans in your stadium.
“But now we play, we have everything, we have 10 games to play and the club can take a decision in the future. We feel at home here. Crisis? It is speculation to try to punch Tottenham, this is what it is.”
Stellini revealed that he made it clear to the players that he wants to see them enjoying their football and insisted that the squad is fully motivated to finish the season as strongly as possible.
He added: “This is one of the first things I said to the players: ‘I don’t want sad faces here.’
“I want only players with smiles because we are playing football. We are playing for Tottenham!
“We are in a good position. We have to stay there. The desire has to be to reach the target because the target can give energy and a future to everyone.
“It’s really important [to play against teams with something to play for]. We know that we are up and down for a long time.
“We had a small part last season where we were not up and down, and it was at the end of the season.
“What changed between now and that moment? Nothing, because we work in the same way. We have to try to be the same team we were in that moment.
“At that moment you could feel the energy we had. We have to recreate that. Smiling faces are important for that, players with good behaviour, players that help each other.”
Spurs Web Opinion
I doubt what is happening at the boardroom level with Paratici will have any influence on the squad for now.
It will be interesting to see if the players play with a little more freedom and with less fear of failure now that Conte is no longer at the helm.
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