‘Richarlison is right, his season is s***’ – Conte hits back at ‘SELFISH’ striker and hints he doesn’t deserve to play
ANTONIO CONTE has revealed that he is in full agreement with Richarlison that the Brazilian has been “s***” this season.
And in an explosive press conference, the Tottenham boss also said that the 25-year-old had “scored no goals” and labelled the forward “selfish”.
Spurs splashed out £60m to Everton last summer to sign Richarlison but he has only managed two goals in 25 appearances after an injury-ravaged campaign.
He was brought on for the final 20 minutes of his team’s Champions League draw with AC Milan on Wednesday, a result which eliminated them from the competition, and afterwards the star let rip at his manager for benching him and said that it has been “s***” this season.
However, ahead of their game with Nottingham Forest tomorrow, Conte said: “First of all I watched the interview of Richarlison. He didn’t criticise me. He said his season was s*** and he’s right.
“His season has been not good. He had injuries, played and scored in the Champions League and then went to the World Cup and then had a serious injury.
“He’s scored no goals for us. I think he was really honest to say his season was not good. His season has not finished yet. If he deserves to play I’ll give him the opportunity.
“For the rest of the interview, I think he made a mistake. When you speak of ‘I’ and not ‘us’ you are being selfish.
“I say to my players if we want to build something important and win a trophy we have to speak with ‘we’ not with ‘I’, because otherwise you’re thinking of yourself.
“He made a mistake and he apologised and it was good for me to clarify with the team again about this. In this aspect we have to improve. We have to be more of a team and show more spirit positive, especially in negative moments.”
Conte continued: “Sometimes it’s not enough to be a good guy. You have to to show the right desire and fight to win the game and the duels, to be nasty. I think that sometimes we are a bit soft, but I’m the coach and I’m the first responsible for this to happen and it doesn’t happen every time.
“I have to improve the team and I have to improve the spirit of my team. It always happened in the past and I hope it happens here.”
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Pressure is mounting on Conte as speculation over whether he will stay or go at Spurs rumbles on.
He added: “Again my future. In this moment, the most important thing is to be focused on the league.
“You know what is my opinion, what is my desire. I say to you a lot of times that the situation that I have found, and we are far to aspire to be competitive to fight to win.
“I repeat this for a long time. We need time and patience. I see the environment has no patience or the environment does not want to see the reality.
“The club knows very well what is my situation and they know what are my thoughts. We can’t do miracles. If I am to take the people as a target. I am not this person. The reality is this.
“We’ll see what happens in the future. I’m not stupid to kill myself. Until the end though I am ready to die for this club but then we’ll see, I’m not too stupid to keep killing myself.”