Antonio Conte took no prisoners in unleashing an insane rant at Tottenham Hotspur players, basically calling out their history of losing under pressure. After Spurs’ 3-3 draw against Southampton in the Premier League, the Italian manager let rip on his players.
He said in a sensational post-match press conference: “They are used to it (losing) here. They don’t play for something important. They don’t want to play under pressure. They don’t want to play under stress. It is easy in this way. Tottenham’s story is this for 20 years. There is the owner but they never won something. Why?
“I said I wanted to see the fire and I have not seen it. I said that I want to see the fire in their eyes, in their hearts. I want to see the right spirit. Not only in the training session, but on the pitch because it is here you make a difference.
“Where are the players? In my experience, if you want to be competitive and fight, you have to improve this. And this is really low in this aspect. I see only 11 who play for themselves.”
It was a truly incredible rant that had the entire football community talking. Conte seems to be pushing for the Spurs to fire him, but that is just one of the many theories discussed on social media after his rant.
Pushing for his severance package?
Many fans questioned why Conte didn’t follow up his outburst in the press conference by simply putting in his resignation if he really was so disgusted by the club.
A reason behind that is that he might be pushing to receive a lucrative severance package from the club. Conte received a £9 million pay-off when sacked as Chelsea manager in 2018 and also received a multi-million payout from Inter Milan in 2021.
The reason why he’s being so public with his rants is that he wants Spurs to fire him immediately and give him his rightful pay-off for early contract termination.
Still, bang on with his points
While Conte might’ve been rather too direct with slamming his players and employers at Spurs, he is earning a lot of praise from football fans for having the guts to call out the reality.
Tottenham hasn’t won a trophy in over a decade and has hardly challenged for major trophies over the period.
More so, they’ve had a reputation for buckling under pressure (or bottling it) – so him calling them out on those issues has gained a stamp of approval from some fans.
Déjà vu
This isn’t the first time in his career that Conte has done something like this. He even blasted Chelsea players before being sacked by the club and grew irritated at Inter Milan and Juventus too.
There is a ‘cycle’ to his managerial carer, where he wins trophies, then demands more and when things don’t work out, he just mentally checks out from managing a set of players.
Blamed everyone but the fans
Despite his disrespectful comments towards the club and the players, Conte made sure to confirm his adoration for Spurs fans.
Memes galore
As is the case with anything major that happens in football, the memes are soon to follow afterward.
Conte’s rant has attracted a horde of hilarious memes, including a possible comparison with The Office (UK) character David Brent ranting at his workplace too.
There’s another hilarious one from the movie ‘Ted’ where a store manager decides to promote Ted for causing chaos in his office space – with fans depicting the manager as Spurs chairman Daniel Levy to promote Conte after this.
Tottenham are unlikely to keep Conte for much longer after this astonishing rant, but it remains to be seen if Levy buckles under the pressure to sack the manager and pay him major compensation now or let his contract run out before hiring someone else after the season is over.