Antonio Conte right man for the herculean task at Tottenham Hotspur

Antonio Conte’s re-arrival on English shores three years after the acrimonious rupture of his love affair with Chelsea has raised a number of contentious arguments, foremost of which is his position in the list of leading club managers across Europe. 

The Italian is by near universal consensus among the top coaches on account his ability to win league crowns with Inter Milan, Chelsea and Juventus (thrice). Any tactician who can wrest crowns in half of his last ten years as manager deserves plaudits. The EPL and Serie A are among Europe’s top 5 leagues, so Conte cannot be accused of being a flat-track bully.

Detractors often point to Conte’s failure to land any European trophies as evidence of his lack of tactical depth. They miss the point as Pep Guardiola, the man who sits at the apex   of most world’s top club coaches rankings, has also not lifted any continental silverware for over a decade. 
They forget Leicester City boss Brendan Rodgers, Bayern Munich supremo Julian Nagelsmann and Paris Saint Germain’s Mauricio Pochettino are also rated among Europe’s best despite never having won a single domestic league accolade. Such criticism can only hold water with Pochettino, who let the Ligue One crown slip out of his grasp.

Allegations Conte is a cheque book manager who can’t thrive without forays into the transfer market don’t hold  water either, otherwise he wouldn’t have accepted the Spurs job mid-season. In any case, all the world’s best managers must be allowed to build teams that match their football philosophy.  But he is not among bosses at clubs such as Everton, AS Roma, Lazio and Manchester United, who in recent years have squandered fortunes on transfer fees without any silverware to show for.

Driven as he is, the former Azzurri boss will be the first to acknowledge that the Tottenham Hotspur job is the toughest of all assignments he has ever engaged. Firstly because he’s taken the reins at a club at which winning is not an in-built culture. 
All his previous jobs were with clubs which had won numerous league titles. Spurs’ last English top flight title was in 1961 – before Conte was born – while they last won silverware thirteen years back. Inculcating a winning culture will be the most onerous of his tasks at the North London club.

The feeling among neutrals is that Nuno Espirito Santo was a sacrificial lamb for Daniel Levy’s  inefficiencies. Why appoint Nuno in the first place, when his counter attacking approach to the game flies in the face of the club’s motto - To Dare Is To Do? Levy obviously lacks a proper supervising authority. 
The Spurs chairman has staggered from one management blunder to another. The ill-thought firing of Pochettino, scatter gun appointment of Jose Mourinho and knee-jerk manner of his sacking, plus the dilly dallying over the Portuguese’s replacement all point to an appointing authority that’s reached the end of his tether.

The 52-year-old’s  principal job is to get the best out of a squad that’s operating way below it’s full potential. While a maiden Premier League title may be out of reach, Conte has inherited the most lethal striking partnership in EPL history. 
If he can get Harry Kane to stop feeling sorry for himself over his aborted transfer to Manchester City, he will have a ready partner with whom to wreak havoc in Son Heuing Min. Don’t know what his job detail entails but Conte stands warned. 

It was a lot easier to win the 2017 title at Chelsea because Guardiola was still find his Premier League bearings, Jurgen Klopp’s gengenpress was yet to yield dividends and Thomas Tuchel hadn’t arrived at Stamford Bridge. Conte’s North London task is herculean.

Allan Ssekamatte is a columnist and match forecast specialist with Daily Monitor