In Antonio Conte’s strategic playbook, certain events come around like clockwork. In between the Tottenham Hotspur manager’s many successes as a club coach, there are the regular confrontations with his employers. Any student of Conte’s career can pinpoint accurately when and on what terms he will pick those battles.
Ahead of Thursday's evening trip with Spurs to Manchester City, Conte steered his pre-match press conference towards the issue of institutional responsibility, of club executives facing – or, rather, not facing – up in public.
It has been a tough task answering questions about Spurs’ form lately. They lost the derby at home to Arsenal at the weekend and have lost five of their last 10 Premier League matches, and slipping out of the top four in the table.
“I think it would be good to have the club present in the media, to speak,” said Conte. “Otherwise, there is only one face to explain a situation which is better for the club to explain.” That face, that voice is always his. “I have never seen the club, or sporting director, come to explain strategy and vision. If only the coach speaks, there are sometimes misunderstandings.”
If that could hardly be mistaken for anything other than a challenge to the Tottenham hierarchy, in the middle of a transfer window that, publicly and privately, Conte has urged his bosses to use to strengthen the squad, it also echoed remarks he has made in the past about feeling exposed.
Here’s Conte speaking in the summer of 2020, 14 months into his previous job, as coach of Inter Milan: “There’s very little protection from the club, absolutely zero,” he complained. The third transfer window of his time at Inter was just opening when he said those words. Note the timing. Conte is 14 months into managing Spurs, and in his third transfer window of his time in North London.
Rewind to early 2018, into his second season managing Chelsea, and reporters were listening to Conte pointedly saying “the club must be ready to share responsibility,” and suggesting “the club prepare a statement, a statement of support”.
Conte had guided Chelsea to the league title the previous May, in his first season working in England. But by his 14th month in charge there, with his second season not matching the same standards, he was already referring to Chelsea’s 2016/17 title as “a miracle.” The same word – “miracle” – has started to creep into how he describes Spurs’ achievement in finishing fourth last season.
Tottenham 0 Arsenal 2: Player ratings
Thus the Conte calendar, where tussles with the board play out from one club to the next as deja vus. After this January window is over, the Spurs chairman, Daniel Levy and his advisers will turn their minds to how hard to push Conte into prolonging his stay beyond June.
The Italian insists he is keen to build at Spurs beyond then, but he has a famously restless history. His stints at Chelsea and Inter lasted two seasons each. He was at Juventus, where he won a trio of Serie A titles, for a year longer, up until 2014, but it was a three-year period sprinkled with spiky remarks about a perceived lack of investment in the squad compared with spending at other European superclubs.
Ahead of the trip to the Etihad Stadium, Conte described City, English football’s leading superclub, “as the best team in the world at moment”. No matter that, like Spurs, Pep Guardiola’s side are fresh from a defeat in their local derby, City the narrow losers, via a controversial goal, at the weekend to Manchester United.
It’s a fixture that, Conte must anticipate, will be taken as a measure of Spurs’s progress, year on year. Last February, Tottenham went to City and pulled off an improbable 3-2 victory, Harry Kane outstanding, and, significantly, two newcomers from last winter’s recruitment, Rodrigo Bentancur and Dejan Kulusevski, influential in directing Spurs’s effective counter-attacks.
Kulusevski, on a long-term loan from Juventus, scored within five minutes of his first start and set up Kane’s winning goal in the fifth-minute of stoppage time, just after Riyad Mahrez seemed to have salvaged a point for City.
“We were very good and showed great resilience,” recalled Conte of a win that began Spurs’ march up the table from the minor European positions to qualification for the Champions League. “Against Manchester City, you have to try to not make mistakes. You know, for sure, ball possession will be 70 or 75 per cent for them. If you have 25 per cent you have to be very good, move the ball well and create chances.
“Also, in this type of game, you need to be a bit lucky to get a good result.”
EA Sports FC 25
Developer: EA Vancouver, EA Romania
Publisher: EA Sports
Consoles: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4&5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S
Rating: 3.5/5
Company Fact Box
Company name/date started: Abwaab Technologies / September 2019
Founders: Hamdi Tabbaa, co-founder and CEO. Hussein Alsarabi, co-founder and CTO
Based: Amman, Jordan
Sector: Education Technology
Size (employees/revenue): Total team size: 65. Full-time employees: 25. Revenue undisclosed
Stage: early-stage startup
Investors: Adam Tech Ventures, Endure Capital, Equitrust, the World Bank-backed Innovative Startups SMEs Fund, a London investment fund, a number of former and current executives from Uber and Netflix, among others.
The specs: 2018 Nissan 370Z Nismo
The specs: 2018 Nissan 370Z Nismo
Price, base / as tested: Dh182,178
Engine: 3.7-litre V6
Power: 350hp @ 7,400rpm
Torque: 374Nm @ 5,200rpm
Transmission: Seven-speed automatic
Fuel consumption, combined: 10.5L / 100km
Other key dates
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Finals draw: December 2
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Finals (including semi-finals and third-placed game): June 5–9, 2019
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Euro 2020 play-off draw: November 22, 2019
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Euro 2020 play-offs: March 26–31, 2020
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
World Cup final
Who: France v Croatia
When: Sunday, July 15, 7pm (UAE)
TV: Game will be shown live on BeIN Sports for viewers in the Mena region
Tips to stay safe during hot weather
- Stay hydrated: Drink plenty of fluids, especially water. Avoid alcohol and caffeine, which can increase dehydration.
- Seek cool environments: Use air conditioning, fans, or visit community spaces with climate control.
- Limit outdoor activities: Avoid strenuous activity during peak heat. If outside, seek shade and wear a wide-brimmed hat.
- Dress appropriately: Wear lightweight, loose and light-coloured clothing to facilitate heat loss.
- Check on vulnerable people: Regularly check in on elderly neighbours, young children and those with health conditions.
- Home adaptations: Use blinds or curtains to block sunlight, avoid using ovens or stoves, and ventilate living spaces during cooler hours.
- Recognise heat illness: Learn the signs of heat exhaustion and heat stroke (dizziness, confusion, rapid pulse, nausea), and seek medical attention if symptoms occur.
Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
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Company Profile
Company name: OneOrder
Started: October 2021
Founders: Tamer Amer and Karim Maurice
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Industry: technology, logistics
Investors: A15 and self-funded
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
