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Gary Neville simply can’t believe what Daniel Levy has done at Tottenham recently

Milo Clay

Sun 30 April 2023 9:15, UK

Gary Neville has admitted that he was surprised when Daniel Levy decided to replace Antonio Conte with Cristian Stellini at Tottenham Hotspur.

Stellini was relieved of his duties as acting head coach earlier this week following the 6-1 defeat at Newcastle United.

The Italian was set to take charge until the end of the campaign after Antonio Conte’s departure last month. But after managing just one win in four Premier League games, he’s been replaced by Ryan Mason.

Tottenham continued to struggle under Stellini and it was much of the same, which shouldn’t have come as a surprise given he’s worked as Conte’s assistant for the past few years.

And Gary Neville has told that he was surprised Daniel Levy handed Stellini the role in the first place.

Neville shocked by Stellini appointment

“I’ve been defending Daniel Levy for quite a few years, I’ve actually said he’s one of the best operators in football,” he said.

“He’s obviously running a large part of the club correctly but he’s never let go of the football side. It’s a little bit similar say to Ed Woodward at Manchester United who was basically driving record revenues, record profits on the business side. But on the actual football side, they wanted to play football manager.”

“I’m really surprised that they took that 10 days to then lose Conte after that interview and then came up with Stellini,” he added.

“You might as well stick with Conte until the end of the season – I’ll not speak to you just get on with it and manage the club because that’s your job or bring in someone that would deal with it until the end of the season. Chelsea have had a similar problem, with bringing Frank [Lampard] in.”

“There’s a lot of examples now where you think you can just put someone in until the end of the season to sail the ship to shore. It’s not working, in fact, it exacerbates the situation and makes it a lot worse,” Neville added.

“It’s looked terrible in the last few weeks. I think Ryan Mason is just because of his association with the club and obviously the fact he’s not a Conte man, probably makes it better and you saw a response from Tottenham in the second-half [vs Manchester United].”

It was certainly a surprise to see Stellini named as Conte’s replacement, while the majority of the former Tottenham boss’ coaching staff also remained at the club. 

Of course, the Italian enjoyed a decent spell in the dugout while Conte was recovering from surgery in Italy earlier in the season.

But it just didn’t work under Stellini after he was given the role of acting head coach and something had to change following a humiliating defeat at St James’ Park.

The Tottenham squad seem to have responded under Mason now after they produced a brilliant second-half comeback to earn a 2-2 draw against Manchester United on Thursday. 

It won’t get any easier for Mason though, with Spurs set to travel to Anfield later on today.