Antonio Conte has been confirmed as the new Tottenham manager.
As MailOnline exclusively revealed yesterday morning, Nuno Espirito Santo was axed as Spurs head coach, the club confirming the Portuguese’s departure just before 10am.
And Tottenham’s increasingly influential director of football Fabio Paratici moved quickly to identify Nuno’s replacement, with Conte signing a deal until 2023 with an option to extend. He has already met the players as attention swiftly turns to Thursday’s Europa Conference League clash with Vitesse.
Conte said: ‘I am extremely happy to return to coaching, and to do so at a Premier League club that has the ambition to be a protagonist again.
‘Tottenham Hotspur has state-of-the-art facilities and one of the best stadiums in the world. I can’t wait to start working to convey to the team and the fans the passion, mentality and determination that have always distinguished me, as a player and as a coach.
‘Last summer our union did not happen because the end of my relationship with Inter was still too recent and emotionally too involved with the end of the season, so I felt that it wasn’t yet the right time to return to coaching.
‘But the contagious enthusiasm and determination of Daniel Levy in wanting to entrust me with this task had already hit the mark. Now that the opportunity has returned, I have chosen to take it with great conviction.’
It is understood Conte, who has a long-term relationship with Paratici, has agreed a contract with a pro-rata salary of around £13million.
But Tottenham inadvertently announced Conte’s arrival early, with a post going up saying ‘Welcome to Tottenham Hotspur, Antonio Conte’ on Twitter’s advertising platforms. It showed Conte posing with the club’s home shirt.
The post was hastily deleted before Spurs then officially confirmed their new manager around midday.
There was growing optimism at Tottenham on Monday afternoon that Conte would be their next manager, with one well-placed source insisting the deal was as good as done.
Indeed, players were told to expect the new manager to be in situ to take this morning’s training session at the club’s Enfield HQ.
And his arrival was rubber-stamped late on Monday night.
Conte came close to joining Spurs in the summer but eventually decided against taking the role amid concerns over the club’s ambition.
Conte’s appointment will be viewed as a major victory for the club given his standing as one of the planet’s leading coaches.
He has been heavily linked with replacing under-fire Ole Gunnar Solskjaer at Manchester United.
And the 52-year-old’s track record of proven success will come as a reason for huge optimism for supporters, who have grown fed-up at the direction the club is headed.