Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher have agreed on having major concerns for Antonio Conte and Tottenham following the 2-1 defeat to Liverpool on Sunday evening.
Spurs, who are fourth in the league and reached the knockout stages of the Champions League for the first time since getting to the final in 2019, have had a strange season, with results just about going their way but pressure still being on Conte.
The Italian is perhaps a victim of his own success with high expectations going into the season born from Conte's innate winning and being truly backed in the market over the summer. With Richarlison, Yves Bissouma and Djed Spence all high profile deals, the squad hasn't fully gelled yet.
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Despite overturning a half-time deficit against Marseille to progress to the last-16 in Europe and remaining well in contention for the top four in the Premier League, all has not seemed well at the club, especially with fierce rivals Arsenal topping the table. Conte's troubles are closer to home than that though, as he struggles to balance fitness issues and a lack of trusted wingback choices.
Gary Neville, who watched the defeat to Liverpool, admitted that there's things that aren't quite right at the club. “It is quite worrying for Tottenham with this pattern of playing terribly in the first half of games, they’re an absolute disaster in the first half," Neville said speaking on The Overlap, in partnership with Sky Bet.
He added: "I watched the game against Marseille in the Champions League and that was a nothing performance and again that happened against Liverpool. It’s rare before a game that a team is going to play badly, but with the balance with how they set themselves up, I couldn’t see how that could work. Having Harry Kane up front on his own, with no midfielder capable of supporting him, was never going to work against a team like Liverpool.”
Tottenham have now scored 10 times in the second half since their last first half goal and seven of their last 10 have come from set-pieces. Meanwhile they went behind in four of their six Champions League group stage games, and drew one 0-0, and have also failed to score the first goal in each of their last four matches too.
Conte has, in his defence, been working without key attackers Richarlison and Dejan Kulusevski in that time and Cristian Romero in defence has been playing through pain, but the lack of fluidity for much of this season has ramped up the tension when results turn.
Carragher isn't convinced that he will get the time required to build a more Conte-like squad though. “10-15 years ago, supporters would be happy with a win on a Saturday afternoon and that would be it, but now they want a lot more than that," he added on the Overlap.
"With the way every little detail is analysed in the game nowadays, fans want to see attacking and exciting football, but you’ll not see that with Antonio Conte. When you play the style of football that he does, you need results straight away and his style of football requires them to win immediately.
“Fans say that he needs five or six transfer windows, but realistically he has two windows as he won’t be there that long.”
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