Matt Doherty has said he never came close to leaving Tottenham Hotspur before reigniting his career under Antonio Conte.
The 30-year-old has had a tough time at Spurs since arriving from Wolves in the summer of 2020 under Jose Mourinho, struggling to adapt to being a conventional right-back again after years as a wing-back. Tottenham were understood to be open to offers for the Republic of Ireland international last summer and again in January but he has been a man transformed under Conte in his favoured position in recent weeks. He has had five goal involvements in Spurs' past six matches, scoring twice and laying on three assists.
Doherty made it clear after Sunday's 5-1 win against Newcastle, in which he scored and provided an assist, that he never felt he was closing to leaving the club.
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"I didn't come close, I never had a conversation, nothing was ever said to me. From my point of view I was led to believe that I wasn’t going anywhere," he said. "I don’t know if that’s the case, that is what my point of view was. You have thoughts at times that it wasn’t working out, I just decided that I wanted to train hard and I wanted to play here.
"Why would I want to go anywhere apart from Tottenham? I thought if I keep training hard and I keep doing what the manager wants the opportunity would come and it would be up to me to grasp the opportunity and at the moment I seem to be doing that well."
The dominant victory against Newcastle pushed Spurs into the top four for the first time since mid-September and puts the pressure on Arsenal, who travel to Crystal Palace on Monday evening.
"It shoots us into the top four at the moment, we have kind of done our job, we have had an inspired display there, especially in the second half, but we just have to look after our own games, we know we still have to play Arsenal," said Doherty. "We are going to think for every game of the season that it is a must-win game and we can’t afford to slip up. It’s nice that we have done our job first this weekend and let’s just see if results go our way.
"We are in really good rhythm, but I am pretty sure the other teams will be looking at it and worrying about themselves, especially if we don’t have to play some of the teams around us, they won’t have a problem with that.
"They will look at it as just concentrating on themselves and seeing what they can do. The second half was pretty electric. We knew that at half-time, we said just to stay calm, trust our ability, trust our process and the chances would come. But it looked in the second half like we might score every time, it was pretty exciting."
The team is starting to play in the way Antonio Conte wants and the Italian has praised the ability of Doherty and others for bringing what he wants on to the pitch.
"He is drilling us on the training pitch," said the Irishman. "He wants us to play a certain type of football and you can see that we are doing that and it is really exciting football and we look a real threat going forward, we look solid, although I know we conceded today. We are just carrying out what he wants us to carry out and he will be pretty happy with that performance today."
On his role within the team, Doherty added: ""The manager wants us to play a certain way as a wing-back and it just takes a bit of time to understand what he wants. I guess it helps when the team is playing as well as you do and you get in a couple of times at the back post, the confidence just builds.
"Every wing-back and every player is just playing at the top of their game right now, everyone wants the ball, everyone is making the right angles the manager wants, everyone is making the runs he wants. What he wants us to do, when we do it it comes off and we create big chances from it. A lot of it is down to the manager."
Doherty had to switch to the left-hand side of the pitch on Sunday with both Sergio Reguilon and Ryan Sessegnon out injured, but it did not hamper his efforts as he grew better and better as the game wore on.
"I feel good on the pitch. For the rest of the team, not only myself, it wasn’t an easy first half. They didn’t create clear-cut chances but they were just awkward," he said of Newcastle. "The first half wasn’t that easy but in the second half we saw the picture clearer, we seemed to have more time on the ball, and we just seemed to have the space to run in behind and we punished them, we were quite clinical today. I'm over the moon at the moment.
"We don't feel the pressure, we are feeling the excitement. We feel really confident at the moment, we feel like everybody is on top of their game. We are going into games thinking we are going to win, we really have a high level of confidence now, to the point where we just can’t wait to play the next game."
