Antonio Conte has labelled the current state of the Premier League a “mess” and believes the rule makers in the competition have “totally changed the vision”. Tottenham Hotspur now have four games in hand over three of the five teams above them as do their opponents on Wednesday night, Leicester City.
Antonio Conte said: “I think that it is a mess now but this is the truth. There is maybe only one team or maybe two who have played all their league games, City and maybe West Ham. The others have played 18. Burnley 17. Then they postponed the game against Watford. It is a big mess for sure. It was very strange to put yourself in this situation you understand with this decision. I repeat we have found the Premier League very strict when it happened, the outbreak in our training sessions and they did not want to postpone the game against Leicester. The Burnley game was postponed by snow. Then all this happened. Yes you have to learn to laugh, you have to laugh because they have totally changed the vision. We accept and we play here and for this reason we have to accept every decision, but I think that in every moment you have to show respect for all the teams and players, coaches, for people who work in football. If you remember, we were the first team to have an important outbreak, maybe the only team with so many Covid cases. Maybe 11, 12 [eventually], the whole staff, U23 players. Despite this, I have seen a bit of difficulty to accept this and if you remember we only postponed one game for our positive cases and then we were ready to play also in the Conference League and then at Leicester, after only one week I remember. It’s a tough period, but at the same time I think we have to face the situation and if there is important cases of Covid in the teams then it’s right to postpone the game. Otherwise, we are the first to want to play and my club, the players, me and my staff because we work to play games, but at the same time I think you have to take the decision to postpone only for one reason, if there are Covid cases, not for injuries, not for international duty.”
Conte also believes that any discussion about player welfare is a waste of time because he feels that’s not really being looked at.
Antonio Conte added: “I think this is not the first season in England that you are speaking about the welfare of the players, to try to protect the players. My question is – in all these years, what has changed? Nothing. For this reason I tell you that it is stupid to continue to speak about the welfare of the players because you are losing time. It’s not only this season but for many, many years. You are talking every time about the welfare of the players but what are we doing for the welfare of the players? Nothing. We are implementing [forcing] the games to play, this is the truth, and then I think that it’s stupid to speak about a topic that you don’t want to solve or you can’t solve and for this reason, we lose time. We have to move on and to try to be serious and to face other topics.”
Conte believes that the end of the campaign will be the moment to analyse the decisions that have been taken by the Premier League and for the powers-that-be to learn from everything that has happened.
Antonio Conte said: “Honestly, I think at the end of the season it will be the time to reflect on this season and the decisions the Premier League have taken. You can gain a lot of experience from this season – the same as teams do. After the season you need to pause and see what are the positive things that you did and which are the negative things you can improve. It would also be the right time for the Premier League to reflect on this season and to try to improve. There is a lot of room for improvement for the teams but also for the Premier League this season.”
