Everton linked Conte admits he likes ‘difficult challenges’
Antonio Conte has admitted he likes the idea of taking on a tough project when thinking about his next job, well being manager of Everton certainly qualifies!
The Italian has been out of work for the last few weeks since leaving Inter Milan at the end of last season, despite bringing them a first title in a decade. Inevitably he has been linked with the Everton job along with just about every coach around.
For a while it appeared he was going to Spurs until a few days ago when negotiations between him and the north London club seemed to break down, mainly over whether he would be given enough money to ensure he had the spending power needed in the transfer market.
That appeared to open the possibilty that the Toffees might be able to persuade the Italian to consider Goodison Park as an alternative.
This always seemed a real long shot though given that the Blues are a mid-table Premier League club and aren’t able to offer him European football and that would presumably make it harder for Conte to attract the players he wants.
Given this and the huge number and variety of potential candidates to succeed Carlo Ancelotti, Conte’s name has been lost a bit. Given his excellent track record he does of course tick many of the boxes and would, at least on paper, make a very sound choice.
Now it seems as though Tottenham have shifted their focus to Paulo Fonseca so presumably making it less likely they will appoint Conte.
And his latest comments appear to indicate that he might be open to persuasion by Everton, if the club and it’s ‘project’ was sold to him properly.
In many ways this is very similar to what happened eihgteen months ago when the club were talking to Conte’s fellow Italian Ancelotti.
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He had just become available after leaving Napoli and Farhad Moshiri was determined to get him whatever it cost.
One of the things that supposedly attracted Ancelotti to the job was the way the Blues sold their ambitions for the club and the plans in progress such as the new stadium.
Moshiri succeeded but of course it’s not worked out as we hoped it would and Ancelotti’s commitment to seeing that project though, proved to be paper thin.
So there is always a possibility that the same thing could happen again even if the Toffees were to go from one high-profile Italian coach to another. It’s a difficult one to judge and I presume is one of the issues being considered by the powers that be.
Everton seem in no hurry to make a choice about their next manager and are still apparently sifting through CV’s and so it’s hard to know whether Conte is among them or not and if he has been in any way sounded out.
If he genuinly wants a challenge he would certianly have one if he walked through the doors at Goodison Park this summer as there is so much work needed to turn this team around. Again, as always it seems we will have to keep waiting for a while to find out who’s taking on that task.