Jordan slams ‘childish’ Conte in 860-word Spurs rant

Simon Jordan believes Tottenham fans deserve better than Antonio Conte in the wake of the Italian manager’s “appalling childish interview” after the defeat to Burnley.

Spurs lost 1-0 at Turf Moor on Thursday, their fourth defeat in their last five Premier League games, to leave them seven points off the pace in the race for a top four finish.

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Conte, who has been outspoken over the work required to move Tottenham into a position where they can challenge for trophies, hinted after the loss that he is perhaps not the man to take them forward.

And Jordan has taken aim at the Spurs manager over what he described as a “scandalously poor interview”, suggesting Conte should be shouldering the blame for his side’s recent poor form.

Jordan told talkSPORT: “I think you have to look at the language. Saying ‘fans deserve better’, they do deserve better, starting with you!

“You should be embarrassed about being beaten by Burnley and should be embarrassed about the run of form you are on because you are responsible for it.

“People go into football clubs to change the direction of it. Bruno Lage has gone into Wolves with far less of a squad than Tottenham have and is producing a team people are regarding to a certain level.

“Of course, the expectations of Wolves and Tottenham may be different, so the standards you judge them by may be different.

“I thought it was an appallingly childish interview. I thought it was temperamental, I thought it was reactionary.

“If they’d have beaten Burnley then we wouldn’t have heard this because we heard a very different narrative from him earlier in the week about how much he loves coming into Tottenham, how he comes in with a smile.

“He gets beat by Burnley and comes out with this.

“You show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser. Nobody wants to be calm and collected about losing games.

“But the temperamental nature of it, I wonder how many times he’s done interviews in Italy like this that we’ve not been privy to.

“I wonder how many times he’s been in a situation where he’s made ridiculously emotional outbursts.

“I’m not defending Daniel [Levy], I’m not going to be in the owner’s camp defending Daniel because we all know where this is going to spin to.

“It’s going to spin to where Daniel Levy is a dreadful owner who won’t spend any money.

“It was a scandalously poor interview.

“He was beyond happy after beating Man City, he then supplemented that by talking about the nature of how much he enjoys being at Tottenham Hotspur. He said it himself.

“Everyone looked at it and said ‘hang on a second’. It rows back against the narrative of a media situation that is reporting the situation that he is endlessly unhappy.

“We all know that buying players in January is a difficult piece of business. They were never going to get [Luis] Diaz as he was always heading to Liverpool.

“They got rid of some troubled players and he’s rebuilding the team.

“What precisely is he complaining about?

“I wonder if there’s other factors in the equation. I wonder if the project at Man United, as much as I’m an advocate of Ralf Rangnick, is not working well and whether there is influence suggesting maybe Man United should have got him first time around and will get him this time.

“Maybe Levy spent so much time prostituting himself convincing Conte to come to Tottenham that he never had a proper relationship with Conte. Now things are a little bit tough for Conte and he talks about being on a precipice and the fact that Daniel Levy has to talk him down.

“None of us understand the moving parts of this, but this is not conjecture, this is not Sky Italia and we are talking about language and interpretation.

“This is somebody speaking about four games out of five and that’s not good enough. Not good enough from you, by the way.

“This is your team. You set them up. They weren’t dreadful against Burnley, they were profligate in their finish.

“But to have laid out a whole diatribe, it really does smack to me of deeply unprofessional, childish mentality.

“This was not soundbites. These were absolute definitive guidelines that he was not happy.

“What can he be asking for? There’s not point asking for player transfers because he’s not getting them now because the window is closed.

“He went out on record to clarify the fact that comments made in Italy about numerical disadvantages were simply a statement of fact rather than degradation of the team’s performances.

“I don’t think he’s asking to be sacked. I think he’s just had a temperamental outburst. I think, like a lot of managers do, and I’ve had a lot of emotional managers but not to this level.

“He’s gone out and laid it all out there. We know it’s going to spin on Daniel Levy. Losing to Burnley, with the squad you have, is nothing to do with Daniel Levy.

“Not being able to compete at the top of the league and Spurs trying to be a super power in football is to do with Daniel Levy and his ability to provide funds.

“Any sensible observer will look at this and see he came in to a squad of players that needed to be supplemented.

“He wasn’t unhappy when he got the job. He wasn’t unhappy when things appeared to be going in the right direction.

“The moment they start losing we have this. Who wants this from a football manager?

“This is not leadership. When you talk about fans deserve better, they deserve better from you. You should be embarrassed that your team were beaten by Burnley.

“And by the way, well done to Burnley they’ve won two games back-to-back and are digging themselves out of this situation.”