Antonio Conte’s 16-month reign as Tottenham manager has come to an end after the club announced his departure with 10 games remaining in the season.
The Italian was widely regarded as a serial winner when he arrived in north London, having lifted four Serie A titles and a Premier League in charge of Juventus, Chelsea and Inter Milan.
However, he failed to bring Spurs their first trophy since 2008 and launched a furious rant about the state of the club following last weekend’s 3-3 draw at Southampton.
Here we examine the record of Conte at Tottenham.
Comparison with Pochettino
Despite his recent struggles, Conte remains one of only three Tottenham managers to have guided the club to a top-four finish in the Premier League era.
Mauricio Pochettino achieved Champions League qualification in four consecutive seasons between 2015-16 and 2018-19, while Harry Redknapp did so twice in 2009-10 and 2011-12.
Conte leaves with a better Premier League win percentage (57 per cent) than both Pochettino (56 per cent) and Redknapp (49 per cent), while his points-per-game ratio (1.88) is only fractionally lower than the Argentinian’s (1.89).
The Italian leads Pochettino in several other areas, including number of goals scored per game (2.00 compared with 1.84) and percentage of clean sheets (39 per cent compared with 34 per cent).
That said, Pochettino came far closer to ending Spurs’ trophy drought than Conte, having finished as runner-up in the Premier League (2016-17), EFL Cup (2014-15) and Champions League (2018-19) during his five years at the helm.
Conte at Tottenham – in contrast – had a poor record in cup competitions, with nine wins and eight defeats in 20 matches and no final appearances.
Lack of evolution
Conte was unable to rejuvenate Tottenham’s ageing squad, with the average age of his starting XI this season (27.5) the third oldest in the league behind West Ham and Fulham.
Five of the six players with at least 4,000 Premier League minutes for Tottenham under Conte were also in the top 10 for game-time under Pochettino.
This is despite the Argentinian having started his reign in 2014 and left the club almost three-and-a-half years ago.
Of Conte’s mainstays, only Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg arrived at the club post 2019, with Harry Kane, Eric Dier, Hugo Lloris, Ben Davies and Son Heung-min all first choice for much of Pochettino’s time in charge.
Going backwards
Conte led Tottenham for 28 Premier League matches this season before his sacking, the same number as he managed after arriving in November during his first campaign.
While Spurs’ points tallies in those periods are broadly similar (49 compared with 56), their goal difference under Conte last season was three times better than it was this term (+36 compared with +12).
The Italian saw his side score 60 goals and concede only 24 in the final 28 matches of 2021-22, compared with 52 goals for and 40 against across the same number of games in 2022-23.
Over the course of his entire reign, Spurs amassed a total of 105 points, the fourth-most in the division after Manchester City (134), Arsenal (121) and Liverpool (112).
Slow starts
Tottenham developed a habit of starting matches slowly in 2022-23, with just 35 per cent of their Premier League goals coming in the first half (18 out of 52) – the lowest percentage in the top flight.
If games ended after 45 minutes, Spurs would be sixth in the league – they are currently fourth – with 10 wins out of 28 and a goal difference of zero.
In contrast, their record in the second period – 14 victories and a goal difference of +12 (34 goals for compared with 22 against) – is bettered only by Arsenal and Manchester City.
Conte’s men were even more conservative in cup competitions this term.
Apart from netting three times in the opening 36 minutes against Eintracht Frankfurt, Spurs failed to score before half-time in 11 of their 12 matches in the Champions League, FA Cup and EFL Cup.
