He’s back. For now, anyway. Antonio Conte’s stop-start season enters its fourth and final phase, interrupted by a World Cup, surgery to remove his gallbladder and a second spell recuperating after he had tried to resume his duties too soon. He returned to Tottenham on Monday and his tenure seems to be entering the finishing straight. It could conclude in glory in Istanbul, but it is likelier to end at Elland Road two weeks before the Champions League final.
Conte, who rarely misses a chance to downgrade expectations, shrugged: “If you ask me if I want to win the Champions League, I would say yes but then there is the reality.” One reality is that a club lingers in limbo with a manager who is a mass of contradictions: the most committed of figures on the touchline, the least when it comes to his own future. He had been keen to come back sooner, the doctors preventing him from going to Wolves on Saturday. He had erred by taking charge in San Siro three weeks ago when his side lost 1-0. “For sure I under-evaluated the recovery after surgery,” he said.
