Antonio Conte at Tottenham and the many questions he has to answer

 

Antonio Conte must overcome a lot of challenges to be successful at Tottenham, one of them is the chairman Daniel Levy. (Photo credit: Tottenham Hotspur)

The new manager bounce is a thing and one would expect it from Tottenham, they have gotten for themselves a man that knows his onions, a serial winner and very strong personality, how much will he improve them?

When Tottenham Hotspur announced the sacking of Nuno Espirito Santo on Monday, the inevitable signing of Antonio Conte was all over the place, felt like they had been in contact with him long before they decided to fire the Portuguese, you’d wonder why they didn’t meet his demands in the summer.

It took Spurs 74 odd days to replace Jose Mourinho with Ryan Mason standing in the gap till the end of the season, lots of names were rumored to be in the pipeline but they eventually settled for the former Wolves man who got on to a fine start but the rest has now been confined to the history books.

Conte is known to take teams from the doldrums to high places, he has won the league in Italy and England with the last coming with Inter Milan last season, but with a team that has never won anything of note, how well will he do at Spurs?

The place of Harry Kane is worth discussing; the 3Lions captain really want out but could the arrival of the Italian change things? His sole reason for wanting to leave is to win titles, he’s 29 and he doesn’t want to end his career without some medals to show his kids, will Conte change that?

Conte is known to be a fan of a dominant center forward, he relied on Diego Costa and Alvaro Morata respectively at Chelsea, he had Romelu Lukaku at Inter Milan and with Harry Kane, he wouldn’t have to look further for that figure.

What system will the Italian deploy? Conte is known for three at the back which Nuno tried severally to no real effect, are we about to see the best of Emerson Royal as a wingback? Steve Bergwijn and Lucas Moura are industrious and probably underutilized, are they about to get busy?

Let’s talk transfers shall we? Daniel Levy isn’t that man that will go all out to spend money, Antonio Conte is that man that likes to get exactly what he wants, two hot heads tinkering at North London, are we about to witness premium kickboxing without buying tickets?

What does Spurs really lack? They need strength in the middle and some courage at the back, in terms of numbers they seem to be doing well but in terms of quality you can’t take a defense that has conceded three times on four occasions to the bank.

Spurs aren’t going to win the league this season, will they be strong contenders next season? Only time will tell and considering how weak Conte is on the continental front, what is the standard expected of the hot head Italian?