If we are to make a compelling case for Antoni Conte to survive, let alone survive at Tottenham, then history tells us that Daniel Levy must not meddle and cannot repeat past mistakes. This is a fact, not an opinion. The opening gambit of Conte’s arrival is that he might arrive with Fabio Paratici. These two worked together at Juventus and achieved great success.
When Pochettino was at Southampton, his director of football was Paul Mitchell. During that period, Mitchell was involved in scouting Victor Wanyama, Dejan Lovren, Ricki Lambert, Adam Lallana, and Luke Shaw.
Poch came to Spurs and Mitchell continued his work, this time for Koeman. During that period he was involved in snapping up Saido Mane, Duasan Tadic, Graziano Pelle, Ryan Bertrand, Shane Long, and Fraser Forster.
Then Mitchell was reunited at Spurs with Mauricio and here Kieran Trippier, Heung-min Son, Toby Alderweireld, and Dele Alli were all acquired. This list of players found at Spurs would have been longer, but Daniel Levy sacked Mitchell and placed him on a mind-boggling 16th-month gardening leave.
Conte and Paratici will not succeed if Levy interferes, and that is what has frequently dogged our transfer activity. Levy has spent a lot of money on players, regrettably, he blew an awful lot of that on players that didn’t pan out because the managers didn’t deem them to be players that they necessarily required. How many of Levy’s Ligue1 acquisitions have been successful?
And don’t even consider the consequences of Conte seeing no transfer activity whatsoever as was inflicted upon Pochettino.
Things need to radically change – and immediately – or this is Levy’s last roll of the dice.
