Italian Antonio Conte has raised the bar for his ambitions in his first full season as Tottenham coach by setting the Premier League and Champions League titles as his goal.
Having previously described his success in leading Tottenham to finish the Premier League in fourth place and qualify for the Champions League as a “miracle”, the former coach of Juventus, Chelsea and Inter seemed determined to go much further during the new season that Spurs begins on Saturday once morest its Alex Reed Southampton.
Tottenham were one of the most active clubs in the summer transfer period, with the inclusion of Brazilian Richarlison, Malian Yves Bisoma, Djid Spence, Croatian Ivan Perisic, French Clement Langley and goalkeeper Fraser Forster, which made Conte optimistic regarding his team’s competitiveness.
The Italian said regarding his team’s goals for the next season, with a smile on his face: Why not the English Premier League and the Champions League? My goal and the club’s goal is to improve. It’s the process we started seven months ago.
He believed that “if you qualify for the Champions League, it does not mean that you have achieved your goals.”
Conte is counting on his excellent training record, as he won the league title in each of the three previous clubs he supervised, whether it was Juventus, Chelsea or Inter.
But the Italian is accused of not settling in his job for a long time, as his career with Juventus, Chelsea and Inter ended in an unfriendly manner.
And it seemed that the scenario would be repeated with Tottenham when he threatened to leave a few months following his arrival as a result of a series of four defeats in five matches in the Premier League during the months of January and February.
But the 53-year-old is determined this time to leave a legacy in Tottenham, explaining: I said I wanted to build something important with this club because I love to win. My experience makes me say we are going in the right direction.
“At the same time, I know that the club needed an extra step forward to be able to compete with the strongest teams in Europe.” That is why we must not be arrogant or arrogant. We have to work and work and work to improve on and off the field in order to become one of the top clubs.