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Report: Antonio Conte and Daniel Levy’s first issues started when he failed to sign £20m PL star for Tottenham

Charles Jones

Fri 24 March 2023 9:45, UK

𒊎Antonio Conte and Daniel Levy haven’t had the best of relationships at Tottenham.

🌼The Italian exploded at the weekend with a tirade about his playing squad and the ownership after the draw with Southampton, and it sounds as though these issues have been bubbling under the surface for quite some time.

💛Indeed, Conte said that he’d tried to hide some of the issues he was having at Spurs – indicating that there has been a long-term problem for the Italian that hasn’t been addressed.

🃏Interestingly, according to , many of the issues between Conte and Levy stem from recruitment, and apparently the first fracture in this relationship came in January 2022 when Conte wanted to sign Adama Traore.

🍒It was highly at the time that Spurs were in for Traore, but a deal didn’t come to fruition as Levy was unconvinced by the idea of bringing the Spaniard in.

♛Understandably, the manager wasn’t happy about being overruled by his owner, and it seems as though the issues have just spiraled since then.

𝓡To be fair, Spurs did end up signing Dejan Kulusevski in that window – a player who is arguably much better than Traore, but you can’t override your manager’s wishes in this way and expect him to stay quiet on the situation.

ܫIt’s not even as though Traore would’ve broken the bank for Tottenham, a deal was apparently doable, and that’s not a huge amount of money for a club like Spurs, especially as they’d spend three-times as much on Richarlison just a few months later.

꧋The reality is that Conte never stood a chance at Spurs. He is a manager who needs autonomous control over the ongoings at his club, but with Levy and Fabio Paratici pulling the strings at Tottenham, this was always going to be a match made in hell.