It may have been Sir Alex Ferguson’s second-most famous three-word phrase, not quite “football, bloody hell” but an addition to the sport’s lexicon nonetheless. “Lads, it’s Tottenham,” the magnificently damning team talk, was true then. It rarely has been in the Mauricio Pochettino years or, in a different way, in Antonio Conte’s reign. The Italian is the ranting antidote to the softness Ferguson inferred. In his own way, he brings intensity and identity to any club he manages.
But not, seemingly, to one where he hoped to manage. His record at Old Trafford now reads: played four, lost four. The demeaning part of defeat with Tottenham was not the scoreline, as Manchester United won 2-0. It was another statistic. It was the 28 shots Erik ten Hag’s side had, which Ferguson watched, the most any team has attempted in a Premier League game this season. Even Bournemouth conceded fewer shots when they lost 9-0. Even Nottingham Forest allowed less in games where signings had to check the back of their teammates’ shirts to learn their names. Even United permitted a mere 22 in a Manchester derby where they were eviscerated and embarrassed.
A few days later, and not entirely coincidentally, Conte said he didn’t like to “play open and concede six, seven or eight”. A couple of weeks later, only the brilliance of Hugo Lloris saved his side from conceding six. This was Tottenham, but not the club’s historic image as inveterate entertainers either. Those 28 shots came when Spurs didn’t open up the game, either: or not intentionally, anyway. Ivan Perisic is at the more attacking end of the spectrum of wing-backs but otherwise Conte could scarcely have named a more cautious side. He brought in Yves Bissouma to join Rodrigo Bentancur and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg in midfield, but they felt triply ineffective as Fred ran the game.
Overloading with defensive midfielders scarcely bolstered Conte’s formidable reputation as a defensive strategist. This was no tactical masterclass. But nor was the set-up out of character: instead quintessential Conte tactics produced an unexpected amount of excitement. Rewind to February and the Italian argued his previous setback at Old Trafford came courtesy of an inspired individual. “We lost against [Cristiano] Ronaldo, not against Manchester United,” he said. On his return, he lost to United, to Fred and to Bruno Fernandes, to Antony and to Ten Hag.
Perhaps he lost a battle of ideas to a manager with a bolder blueprint. “We were a bit scared,” said Conte, even if that was not a reference to his own gameplan. Yet if it was a team brimming with ambition against a side devoid of it, he felt it was a problem of mentality. His side lacked the requisite fighting spirit. “You need to arrive with a war inside of you,” he said. “You need to arrive ready to fight a war and at the end you die or your opponent.”
The language was melodramatic but the more pertinent part came in the analysis. The table shows Tottenham third; their season shows an ability to beat the rest. But not, thus far, the best. So far, they have one, distinctly fortunate, point from a possible nine against the big six and the only mitigating factor is that they are yet to face their peers at home.
“Every time we played a high-level game we struggle,” Conte reflected. “We struggle against Chelsea because we drew but Chelsea dominated the game. And with Arsenal we lost and today against United we lost and for sure, [when] the level is high, we are going to struggle.”
It was a gloomy prognosis from a manager who likes to downplay Tottenham’s chances. “In only 10 or 11 months, you cannot pass from ninth place to become the title contenders,” he said, even if his argument was weakened by the fact his side were overwhelmed by United, who trailed in sixth last season and now threaten to accelerate past Spurs.
In Conte’s defence, Ten Hag had the more expensive and the more talented team, Tottenham a blend of a superstar front two, a World Cup-winning goalkeeper and a more prosaic defence and midfield. Conte may feel he has to overachieve simply to pilot Spurs back into the Champions League, that he has to overcome gaps in resources and class. Tottenham might feel the Italian was supposed to be the game-changer, that, in the absence of Dejan Kulusevski and Richarlison, the potential match-winners were Harry Kane, Heung-Min Son and Conte. When the season started, the sense was that the Italian ranked third only to Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp in a managerial league table. Thus far, his expertise has been displayed in efficiency, in finding a way to win the most winnable games. Yet Conte was supposed to be the man for the big occasion, not just the manager for the smaller matches.
