Taking this Spurs team to fourth in the league is one thing, but it increasingly looks like Antonio Conte has done something even more impressive: changed Daniel Levy’s way of thinking.
For better or worse, very few people in football win a battle of wills with Tottenham’s famously ‘different’ chairman, a man whose stubborn approach to running a football club has delivered financial security and world-class facilities but only ever nearly a team to match.
This summer might just be the one to change that. The signing of Ivan Perisic is eye-catching for several reasons. First and most obvious, it’s a very Champions League signing and a very Conte signing. It’s impossible to think he would have joined Spurs if they were either outside the top four or managed by anybody else. In his first in-house interview he spoke with a smile about watching the Arsenal game and knowing then what came next for the club and by extension for him.
He has won league titles in three countries, scored goals in the semi-final and final of a World Cup and most importantly, for all the experience he brings, has shown no signs of slowing down at 33. Arguably his last two years at Inter – the first of them under Conte – have been the best two years of his career.
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Perisic is precisely the sort of player – perhaps even the specific player – Conte was talking about when he vented his frustration after the January window closed.
“Tottenham are looking for young players, players to develop, not players who are ready now. That is what it comes down to.
“It is inevitable that if you want to grow faster and if you want to be competitive more quickly, you also need players with a lot of experience, because they can also lead to an increase in experience across your team.”
As it turned out, the January arrivals of Rodrigo Bentancur and Dejan Kulusevski were transformative and…
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