Journalist Darren Lewis has given his thoughts on Antonio Conte and Tottenham Hotspur following their recent postponements.
Following recent health issues within the club, that has seen not only their Europa Conference League clash with Rennes postponed, but also their Premier League tie against Brighton and Hove Albion this weekend, Tottenham and their boss Conte could find themselves facing a fixture congestion nightmare in the near future.
Given that it wasn’t the whole squad that was impacted and that Spurs did have plenty of young players registered in their squad for the Europa Conference League game, it raised a question on the TalkSport GameDay podcast about whether or not Tottenham should have played them instead rather than have the game postponed.
Speaking on the matter, Lewis claimed that given Conte’s winning mentality and his approach to the game, it wouldn’t have been in his nature to play such an important game with a weakened side, saying he would have done all he could to win at full strength.
Lewis said: “I think as far as he’s concerned, any competition he’s in, he’s in it to win it. And so I don’t think he would want to just chuck a few kids in and just get rid of it.
“At first, I thought to myself in their list of priorities, it doesn’t really matter; if they forfeit the fixture, he’ll just move on. I actually think he wants to win the competition and create that culture of winning within the club that just isn’t there.”
TIF Thoughts on Darren Lewis’ comments about Antonio Conte and Tottenham Hotspur…
Will Conte make Tottenham a force again?
Yes
No
You can certainly understand where Lewis is coming from when it comes to Conte and trying to instil a winning mentality. As someone who has won plenty recently in his career compared to Tottenham, who are on a drought that has lasted more than a decade, this is a competition that they should be looking to win, and putting out a weakened side would have seriously jeopardised their chances of going through.
So getting this game postponed to give him a better chance of making it through to the knockout stages does certainly make a lot of sense when you look at it through the angle of the desire to get a trophy in the cabinet.
The effects of this probably won’t be felt until later in the season when the fixtures start piling up, but if this is the seed that he has to plant in order to be more competitive and win a trophy by the end of the season, then it will definitely be a worthwhile sacrifice to make.
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