Antonio Conte is not used to managing outside the clear waters of a title challenge. He may not be familiar with how quickly the narrative can turn against you.
- Published before Tottenham's draw with Sporting
Tottenham went into last weekend level on points with Manchester City and yet were widely considered to have been playing poorly all season, the unfashionable style of Conte’s football making Spurs seem a little too ponderous and defensive for the modern Premier League.
It has created a precarious situation in which there is little goodwill stored up for leaner times, and after a 2-1 defeat to Newcastle, Spurs are now lingering dangerously close to crisis territory.
In these situations Conte does not help himself.
The cautious football and reliance on counter-attacking efficiency already creates a problem, but it is made worse by his continual demand for new players.
“We knew this situation,” he told reporters on Sunday. “I spoke with the club, and if you remember very well, at the start of this season, I said to you that we need to go step by step and have time and patience and have two or three transfer markets to bring this squad to be competitive to play in two competitions like Premier League and Champions League.”
This is undoubtedly true, but it cannot help morale to so frequently undermine those in the dressing room, particularly given that Conte’s risk-averse football is perhaps inherently energy-sapping compared to the high-pressing and expansive creativity we see at every other ‘Big Six’ side.
Ultimately Conte’s comments are ammunition for his critics and something he needs to avoid doing between now and January.
Instead, the focus must be on how to solve the problems that have emerged and navigate the final six matches – three in the Premier League, two in the Champions League, and one in the EFL Cup – before the welcome break of the World Cup.
How can Spurs cope without Kulusevski?
The most pressing concern for Conte and Tottenham is how to cope without Dejan Kulusevski, whose absence from the first team has precipitated their decline and who is not expected to recover from his thigh injury for some time.
The data is stark: Tottenham have won five and drawn two of the seven Premier League matches in which he has played (2.4 points per game), and won two and lost three of the five in which he has not (1.2 points per game).
Without Kulusevski Spurs are, quite literally, half the team they are with him.
The problem stems from the similarity between Richarlison and Heung-Min Son in terms of their basic positional play and movement.
Kulusevski is superb at dropping between the lines and joining central midfield, acting as the connector between midfield and attack, most prominently during transitional moments when his intelligent and subtle passes under pressure move Spurs through the thirds.
When he does not play, Tottenham get stuck.
For a while they huffed and puffed with Richarlison in a front three but more recently Conte has acknowledged the need to field Yves Bissouma in a 3-5-2, yet so far the former Brighton midfielder has not been at his best.
In time Bissouma’s press-evading style, wriggling out of danger in the dribble, will make up for the loss of progressive momentum when Kulusevski is out.
Until then, Conte needs a creative solution.
One potential, though controversial, option could be to play Harry Kane in the Kulusevski role and Richarlison as a number nine; Kane has always fancied himself as a more of a ten, so why not give him the chance to prove it?
Another option would be to retrain Lucas Moura as a right wing-back and instruct him to sit in a very narrow position, essentially in the same half-space as Kulusevski.
Injuries piling up for Spurs
After the defeat to Newcastle Conte spoke about the injuries his team were picking up because of their high work load, with Cristian Romero and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg now sidelined as a result of fatigue.
But the decision to keep playing the same players is still a choice that Conte has made, even if he doesn’t rate those on the bench.
“For sure, there are players that need to rest for two days to recover because we have players who, for them, this was seven games in a row, and we don't have the possibility to make rotation in this moment,” he said.
It is not strictly true, and there are several fringe players who should be given a chance in order to minimise the risk of injuries.
Djed Spence is someone Spurs fans are keen to see in action, but Conte has repeatedly said he is ‘not ready’, while Oliver Skipp and Lucas Moura are both working their way back to full fitness.
Bryan Gil remains on the bench but is yet to get a minute in the Premier League or Champions League. Conte might not like Gil, but he is a player signed for a lot of money who could be rotated in.
It’s the tough choice Conte needs to make to avoid the injury situation getting worse.
System change required from Conte
Kane has been in brilliant form this season, scoring 10 goals in 12 Premier League games, but Son’s patchy performances have had a big impact on Tottenham.
Frankly, this should not be the case; Spurs ought to have the capacity to play in a way that does not endlessly rely on these two combining, and the only real solution to this is Conte showing a bit more flexibility.
When the forward line is misfiring, most other managers would try changing formation, and just because we don’t expect this of Conte doesn’t mean we should not point it out as a valid option.
A 4-3-3 formation with Son and Richarlison moved to wider roles could make a big difference, as could a 4-2-3-1 that adds a fourth attacking player to the final third.
There is already a danger that opponents have worked out how to nullify the patterns of Conte’s predictable system.
The Premier League in 2022 is a considerably more tactically astute division than the one he left in 2018, and as transition-based football takes over – with quick breaks and well-drilled, mid-block pressing traps the norm up and down the division – there are question marks over whether the 3-4-3 or 3-5-2 can work anymore.
A team of Tottenham’s stature are expected to dominate possession these days due to the financial chasm between them and most of their rivals.
This has created a landscape in which smaller clubs refuse to hold the ball and are built specifically to deny space, which may mean Tottenham’s low line of engagement is inherently flawed.
They are getting stuck in deep areas of the field, out-witted in the press by clubs forcing Spurs to hold more of the ball than they would like.
Conte is highly unlikely to change his ways, or his formation, and indeed with only a few games to go before the break he won’t be experimenting in any of the ways mentioned here.
The Italian is a single-minded figure and he will, above all else, simply be waiting for the transfer window.
Spurs fans have a right to feel worried about that prospect.
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