Tottenham Hotspur manager Antonio Conte currently finds himself in a very unenviable situation. His squad has been ravaged by covid, and given that we’re now in the midst of festive period fixture congestion, it’s the worst possible time for this to happen.
The fixture pile-up, which already created issues for the respective teams even before the next wave of covid hit, is wreaking havoc on rescheduling. Tottenham’s European adventure for this season may already be a casualty of that. Their continuing on in the UEFA Conference League is very much in doubt.
Leicester vs Tottenham FYIs:
Kick-off time: 7.30 PM GMT, 16th December 2021
Tottenham Team News: go here
Starting XI Prediction: go here
Premier League Preview Podcast: go here
Form Guide (All Competitions): Leicester (WDLLW) Tottenham (DWLWW)
“For me, it is very difficult to speak about this topic,” Conte said.
“For sure, the Premier League didn’t want to postpone the game against Leicester, maybe because we have to play against Burnley and Brighton. We postponed two games before. I can understand, we can understand.”
It’s nothing new for Premier League managers to hit out at the schedule makers this time of year. In seasons past, we’ve seen and heard Jurgen Klopp, Arsene Wenger, Jose Mourinho and many more slam the league and their television partners for overloading the players and coaching staffs. Conte has done it himself, several times, previously.
But still, this hits different. Conte continued, next turning his attention towards UEFA
“On the other hand, I think we deserve to play our chance against Rennes to go to the next group,” the Italian continued.
“We don’t find a good solution between UEFA and Premier League, why Tottenham has to pay for this? It’s not fair we have to pay for a situation that isn’t our fault? I understand if we did something wrong but in this way, for the club, the players, the staff, it’s very difficult to understand what’s happening.”
Conte knows his team could be rusty when they take on Leicester City tomorrow, as the isolation that’s mandated from a positive covid test could affect match fitness, and thus create additional injuries.
“Last week was terrible,” he added.
“It was terrible because the government decided — I also think in the right way — to close our training ground and stop our training sessions.”
“On Wednesday, I had a press conference and I said it was very difficult to speak about football today. And then we had Thursday, Friday, Saturday without training sessions. But Sunday the government reopened our training centre and we started again to work with not many players because we also had problems with Under-23s. We started with 13 or 14 players.
“But today we had training with 16 players and more young players,” Conte added.
Paul M. Banks is the owner/manager of The Bank (TheSportsBank.Net) and author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” as well as “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
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