Dejan Kulusevski believes Tottenham Hotspur’s slump this season was not due to manager Antonio Conte.
Tottenham are going through a tough time this season. During the summer transfer market, with the active investment of Chairman Daniel Levy on his back, he aimed to strengthen the squad and escape from the military. But the reality was bittersweet. After the opening, they continued their undefeated streak until 7 games, but started to fall into sluggishness starting from the match against Sporting. As they were eliminated from the cup competitions one by one, the possibility of ‘escape from nothing’ faded.
In the end, after being eliminated by AC Milan in the round of 16 of the European Football Federation (UEFA) Champions League (UCL), the unrelated was confirmed. Currently, Tottenham’s minimum goal is to enter the top 4 of the league and obtain the right to advance to the UCL. But even this is not easy. Currently, they are in 6th place with 57 points, and are 6 points behind ‘4th place’ Manchester United. The real gap is even bigger as United have played one game less. The gap with ‘5th place’ Liverpool is also 5 points. In the current situation, it seems difficult to keep 6th place instead of 4th place.
The responsibility for the overall sluggishness was ‘mostly’ directed at Conte. After his sack, the team’s situation could not be said to have improved, but most of the evaluations were that the acting coaches were simply carrying on Conte’s legacy. 스포츠토토
In fact, Conte received a lot of criticism even during his tenure. Compared to his last season, his tactics that had lost his color and his passive attitude of not thinking about synergy between players and not making changes were the targets of his criticism. Rumors of a feud with Richarlison were raised during the season.
In this situation, an incident of pulling a hard trigger also occurred. At the official press conference after the 3-3 draw against Southampton, he openly attacked the attitude of the players, the club, and President Daniel Levy. Afterwards, Tottenham’s executives quickly discussed his future and concluded that it was ‘hard’.
As such, most of the responsibility for Tottenham’s slump this season went to coach Conte. But Kulusevski had the idea that Tottenham’s problems were not his fault. According to the British media ‘Evening Standard’, Panayotis Luka, who ate a pot of rice with Kulusevski at Atalanta, had a conversation with him, and in the process, Kulusevski said that Tottenham’s sluggishness was not the responsibility of Conte, but the problem of the entire team. said. “Before Conte left, we had a conversation. He told me the problem was not the manager. He thought that if the whole team had to change their attitude, change was inevitable,” Luca said.