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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
Jonathan Wilson

Antonio Conte is a title machine but the Awkward One leaves Napoli’s fans cold

Napoli's head coach Antonio Conte  gestures during the Serie A match against Lecce.
In a decade and a half Antonio Conte has won a trophy with every club he has managed, apart from Tottenham. Photograph: Xinhua/Shutterstock

There’s always a Tottenham exception. Since leaving Siena in 2011, since he got his first break with a club that had a realistic chance of winning trophies, Antonio Conte has won league titles with Juventus, Chelsea and Inter. Going into Sunday’s matches, with three games remaining, his Napoli lead Inter by three points. In a decade and a half he has won a trophy with every club he has managed, apart from Tottenham.

Maybe Tottenham simply aren’t a club that had a realistic chance of winning trophies. Certainly it’s not as familiar to them as it is to Juventus, Chelsea and Inter. Napoli were Serie A title winners the season before last. Conte led Tottenham for 17 months and although he has the fifth-best win record of any Spurs manager, although he took them to fourth in his first season, having replaced Nuno Espírito Santo in the November, and although they were fourth when he left in March 2023, by the end the situation was so toxic as to be unsustainable.

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