Daniel Levy is going all-in on Antonio Conte.
That is the only conclusion to draw from the latest piece of good news to come out of Tottenham this week as Ivan Perisic signs for the club from Inter Milan.
It caps a fortnight in which Spurs qualified for the Champions League, Conte agreed to stay, and ENIC pumped £150 million into the club.
Conte is perhaps the only world-class manager around who doesn’t particularly care for projects. His philosophy - to win big and win now – is the modern-day equivalent of what Jose Mourinho used to offer in the 2000s.
It is sheer luck that Levy, fooled into investing in the man who invented the surge-and-collapse model, could snare Conte so soon after that Mourinho mistake.
The endings aren’t as catastrophic under Conte but the core principle is the same. He will grab you by the collar, march you up to dizzying heights, then drop you in a daze. There is no time for delicate financial balancing or carefully considered investment in future potential. He knows how to win and he doesn’t care how painful that process will be - or who gets burned along the way.
It’s an attitude that made him an unlikely fit with Levy, but judging by the signing of Perisic the Tottenham chairman has fallen for Conte as he did Mourinho.
This time, that is good news for Spurs supporters. Conte is an elite coach at the peak of his powers arriving at a level below where he ought to be. With the right funds and the right support, he gives the club a once-in-a-generation chance to skip the intermediary steps and launch to the top.
Signing Perisic, a 33-year-old on a free transfer, might not sound like the starting gun on a new era for Spurs. But his capture represents a major shift in transfer strategy while signifying that Conte has got his way: Spurs are happy to sign experienced winners, not just young prospects with a high resale value – something that frustrated Conte in the January window.
“Tottenham are seeking young players they can develop and grow, not players who are ready. That is the issue,” Conte said in a tetchy interview in February, when he suggested the squad had been weakened despite the arrivals of Dejan Kulusevski and Rodrigo Bentancur.
“This is the vision and the philosophy of the club. It is inevitable that, if you want to grow quicker and if you want to be competitive more rapidly, you need players with a lot of experience, because they also raise the experience level of the overall team. But I repeat, I have realised now that this is the vision of the club.”
That vision has changed with the arrival of Perisic, who should fit straight into Conte’s first 11.
Perisic was converted into a left wing-back role by Conte during the 2020/21 season, starting 20 Serie A games and appearing a further 12 times from the bench as he shared the position with Ashley Young during Inter’s title-winning campaign.
But despite being moved into a deeper role, this is still the Perisic English fans will know from Croatia’s run to the final of the 2018 World Cup: a tall, powerful wide man with an excellent first touch and brilliant crossing ability.
Conte has always favoured attacking wing-backs and has a long history of converting wingers into this position, mainly because their ability to get forward and deliver crosses – providing all the width and most of the verticality within his 3-4-2-1 formation – is a more difficult skill than the defensive side.
It is therefore easier to train a winger to do the dirty work than it is to train a full-back to improve their attacking output.
Perisic is Conte’s biggest achievement in this regard and the results have continued through the 2021/22 season. He is now one of the most creative and attacking wing-backs in Europe.
From a high starting position, and regularly bearing down on goal with runs attacking the post, Perisic amassed eight goals and seven assists in 35 Serie A games last season. The under-lying statistics make for even better reading:
Compared to all defenders across Europe over the last 365 days, FBRef ranks Perisic in the 99th percentile for non-penalty xG, the 99th percentile for shots, the 99th percentile for xA, the 99th percentile for touches in the opposition penalty area, and the 96th percentile for progressive passes received.
Perisic loves to run at defenders before cutting inside to shoot, ranking second among Serie A defenders for total shots (45) in 2021/22 and fourth among defenders for carries into the final third (67).
But most impressive is his creativity, either by crossing (he completed the second-most from open play into the box, with 29) or a clever threaded pass (he was eighth for completed open-play passes into the box, with 61).
He also had the 11th most touches in the attacking third in the division; Conte is signing an extremely advanced wing-back, one ready to throw himself into the final third like no current Spurs wing-back can.
Either as an attacking substitution from the bench or as a starter, Perisic can give Spurs the extra venom and directness they have craved.
Too often they seem a little flat or sideways in possession, struggling to implement Conte’s lower block without sacrificing creativity primarily because they have lacked penetrative runners in the wide areas to break a game open.
Clearly Perisic changes all that, and it is more than simply an added bonus that Perisic comes with so much experience.
Perisic has won the Champions League and three league titles, the most recent coming under the Spurs manager. Conte and Perisic work well together. Each will lift the other.
But as important for Tottenham supporters is what this says about the club’s transfer policy and the battle for power between Conte and Levy.
