Antonio Conte has made it clear that no other clubs showed an interest in acquiring his services this summer.
Antonio conte said: “No, absolutely not. I spoke with Tottenham, they called me once and I said thanks for this call and that you talked to me but it wasn’t the right time because it was in a period quickly, very soon after I leave my relationship with Inter Milan and I was still emotionally inside this experience. It was very intensive for me and I wasn’t ready to say yes to Tottenham. I was honest and sporting director Fabio Paratici knows me very well and if I say yes I convince everyone 100 per cent, but if I say it is not the right time for this reason then it’s true.”
Winning league titles in his previous three jobs at club level, Tottenham fans will have their fingers crossed that the Italian can lead the team to some much-needed silverware. Making it clear that there is now a bit of a gap in the Premier League with four teams pulling away, the 52-year-old stressed the importance of working hard to close in on those riding high in the table.
Antonio Conte said: “I thought that this club give me the opportunity to do what I like. To work. Usually when I know in my life I know only this word because if you want to reach important targets you need to work and for sure this club give me this possibility, to work in the way that I want. But I know that we need to take a bit of time because in the Premier League now I think there is a gap with at least four teams. But this situation must be an incentive for us to work harder, to try to start to work to close this gap and to start to think that we have to be competitive and then to try to fight for the title. At the moment, honestly, I can’t tell you that this team is ready to fight for the title or we have many teams in this moment that are more stable. In football, not as a club because this club I think are super, super stable. But on the pitch, I think we need to work to improve our level and to try to be closer to these teams that are showing to be very, very strong. And for this reason, I repeat, I need time but I’m not scared about this because in my life I always work very, very hard to reach the target and to enjoy with the club a title. But at the same time, we have to know the reality – we must be focused on the present and to have a vision for the present and also for the future, to be something important together.”
Key to winning trophies at Tottenham will be to change the mentality of the players having last tasted success in 2008 when they beat Chelsea in the League Cup final. A quality which cannot be bought, Conte has stated that comes from within.
Antonio Conte explained: “For sure, for sure this aspect we have to work, to improve. It’s not easy. It’s not easy because you have to work every day and you have to breathe winning mentality every day and you don’t invent this, the winning mentality. It’s impossible to invent. It’s impossible to pay [for]. Because it doesn’t cost. No money for winning mentality. But I think you have to take the right people, to bring this into the club. The winning mentality, you must breathe every day. You have to start every day with this type of mentality. You have to start to think about football for many hours of your life to improve results, to win. To start to think that Ok, I want to win but I know that it means sacrifice, it means to suffer. It means to work very hard. And if you start to think in this way, it means that you want to become a winner. Otherwise you continue to stay at your medium level.”
Really taking Chelsea and Inter Milan to the next level in terms of their desire to kill off their opponents and do what was needed to win games and trophies, Conte has claimed that Spurs need to improve the level of the team if they want to try and reach some of their targets.
Antonio Conte added: “For sure, also under this aspect….When I speak about time, I involve all of this situations and all of these aspects because when you want to become a winner, when you want to win something in your life, it means that you have to start to think to reach a top target and to win a top trophy, to win the league, to win the Champions League, to win the Europa Conference League or the Carabao Cup, you have to know that most of your time in your life, you have to dedicate also to football. It means that you want to improve your level. I think that in Tottenham we need to improve the level of the team if we want to try to reach some targets, in the present and the future. I think this is the key and we need to start to think football more and more and more.”
