Antonio Conte can bring success to Tottenham, says Fabio Paratici

Tottenham’s managing director of football Fabio Paratici believes the club is in a position to win trophies following the appointment of Antonio Conte.

Conte took over on an initial 18-month contract on Tuesday following the sacking of Nuno Espirito Santo after just four months in charge.

The 52-year-old, who has won league titles with Juventus, Chelsea and Inter Milan, will be tasked with taking Spurs back to the top table of English football after an alarming slide in recent years.

Paratici, who worked with Conte at Juve and tried to hire him in the summer before Nuno got the job, says everything is in place for success.

“We are here to do our best to win trophies, big trophy or small trophy,” he said.

“We try to win every game, we try to do the best every game and to build the best in this season and the next seasons.

“Sometimes you have to be patient to achieve results, you have to be ready to suffer, to sacrifice yourself for the group. This is our mentality and we have to improve in this way.

“When I spoke about patience, to improve you need time. To achieve something we need to go day-by-day, work hard. What we can do is this.

“But for sure we believe that we can achieve our targets, otherwise we are not here. We have to believe we can achieve our targets.

“Big infrastructure, big club, players, history, we have everything to achieve big things. We are here to improve ourselves every day, and if we improve ourselves we improve the club.”

Nuno Espirito Santo was sacked after just four months in charge of Tottenham
Nuno Espirito Santo was sacked after just four months in charge of Tottenham (Nigel French/PA)

Paratici and Conte have both said that talks in the summer broke down because they were too soon after Conte’s exit from Inter Milan, but at the time it was understood that there were differences in stances on key issues.

Conte is a manager who has spent big in the past, but Paratici was coy about what might happen in the January transfer window.

Asked whether the pair had spoken about new players, Paratici replied: “Not at all. Because we trust a lot in our players. We are focused to be better, like a club, like a team.

“We haven’t spoken about players, we have to be focused on our team and then we will see. I think the team is competitive, we trust in the players, we have very good players so we don’t speak about (new) players now, it is not the right time. It is not the right time.”

It has been a disappointing two and a half years since Spurs were in the Champions League final, which was the culmination of four years of challenging for top honours under Mauricio Pochettino.

Conte, who led Chelsea to the Premier League title ahead of Spurs in 2016/17, has vowed to provide a team that will compete.

He said: “To be Tottenham manager is a great pleasure, a great honour. Now for sure I want to repay this trust.

“My coaching philosophy is very simple, to play good football and attractive football for our fans with passion. To have a team stable, not up and down.

“The fans deserve to have a competitive team with a will to fight. I’ll do everything to deserve their support.”

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