Antonio Conte dismisses PSG links
Tottenham Hotspur boss Antonio Conte wasted little time shutting down recent speculation surrounding his immediate future in North London.
Various reports over the past week have linked Conte to the Paris Saint-Germain job, as Mauricio Pochettino’s sacking looms in the wake of what turned out to be another disappointing European campaign for his side.
With PSG set to offload the Argentine manager, Conte – a self-proclaimed serial winner – was supposedly set to consider the offer.
However, he played down the rumours, labelling them as ‘fake news.’ These reports emerged despite Conte’s short stay thus far at Spurs, as he only replaced Nuno Espirito Santo in November.
Spurs, after leapfrogging Arsenal for a considerable part of the season, looked to have edged closer to the sought-after fourth place in the Premier League. Yet a sluggish patch of form of late has meant that Conte’s charges are two points behind their fierce rivals.
Ahead of a difficult matchup, Conte is the last man that would deviate from his short-term goals. The Tottenham boss implied the same when he addressed the rumours quipping “Obviously I think that it’s good that other clubs appreciate my work. This is one thing. But the truth is that I don’t like when people try to invent news – only to speak, only to create problems. This is not right, not fair for me, for the clubs involved and for my players. Also because we’re really focused on these five games to get a fantastic result for us.”
Conte’s current deal at Tottenham expires at the end of next season. He’s determined to land a UCL berth for Spurs and not delve into his long-term future, adding “Now it would be very important to be focused and not listen to fake news and the people that for sure want to create problems for the environment. We have to play these five games and then you know, because I answer a lot of times, that at the end of the season in a private way I will speak with my club, and I will see the best solution.”
The Spurs have several challenging fixtures coming up. They take on Liverpool, and Arsenal in their next two outings.
-Akarshak Roy
Twitter: @RoyAkarshak
Photo: Clement Bucco-Lechat. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.