Arsenal and Chelsea have been left with the last laugh after Antonio Conte was dismissed by Tottenham on Sunday night. One week after the Italian launched into a full-on attack against his own club Daniel Levy pulled the trigger.
Conte, who had just seen his side draw 3-3 with Southampton after being two goals up with 16 minutes left, pulled no punches after the game, calling out his player and Levy in a tirade against the history of the club. With an international break giving Levy time to weigh up his options, Conte's time in London was called.
It's now the second time in five years that Conte has departed the Premier League in remarkable circumstances, going from champions to fifth place strugglers at Chelsea. He also took on higher ups at Stamford Bridge during his second season there too.
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Such was the bad blood in which he left, Conte's goodbye message was brief from Chelsea but Levy cut it even shorter, penning just 25-words. "We achieved Champions League qualification in Antonio’s first season at the club. We thank Antonio for his contribution and wish him well for the future," was all that was said.
Now, top of the table Mikel Arteta is left having seen off his third Spurs manager since arriving at Arsenal. There is no love-lost between him and Conte though. At the end of last season, after Spurs beat their north London rivals to a top four spot, Conte said: "I listen and he complains a lot. He needs to be more focused on his team. He has to be calm and focus on his work. To listen to a coach complain a lot of the time is not good."
Arteta played it calm in response. "What I have tried to do I think in three years here is not make any complaints," he said after the 3-0 loss at the end of the 2021/22 campaign. "I have no complaint and I didn’t complain on Thursday. I just said I could not give a clear assessment on what I thought about the game. And that’s it.
"Whatever we do we will try to defend the club in the right way, like we have always tried to do. The other night I tried to do it as well. That was not trying to affect anybody. But I was being clear and honest.
"I think that is my job and my responsibility when I talk on behalf of the club to express how we feel. And if I cannot do it, I prefer not to."
Arteta was aggrieved at a set of decisions which he felt went against Arsenal and played a part in their downfall. With the chance to equal Conte's trophy haul in England though, he has come out as the more successful one here.
As for Chelsea, Graham Potter has no such ill-feeling towards Conte and has pointed out the characteristic that made the serial league winner such a guarantee throughout his career. "Antonio Conte is himself and I don't look at how he is and look down on him in any way," he said ahead of the meeting earlier this year.
"Anybody that is a different person to me, I don't think I am better than them. The best person to be Antonio Conte is Antonio Conte, the best person to be Graham Potter is Graham Potter. That's how I see it.
"Everybody's different and I don't think he's being fake. He's himself and you can't help who you are. That's just life. Of course you can play a role but in the end I think you have to be yourself. But it isn't nice when people then start to criticise you for being you because I can't help being me and it has served me quite well.
"I started off in the ninth tier of English football so it's not so easy to get to this point. You have to have some resilience, you have to have some passion, you have to have some emotion, you have to have some courage."
Conte's passion and charisma on the touchline is part of what has made him such a hit with fans across the continent but the same single-mindedness has also been cited as a reason for his ultimate failure. Here, both managers have opposing views of the man but appear to have called it correctly in their estimations of him too.
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