Antonio Conte states “Selfish Richarlison” in an interview
Antonio Conte agreed with Richarlison’s x-rated assessment of his first season at Tottenham because he has not scored a Premier League goal, and accused the Brazil international of selfishness.
Conte sat down with his £50million striker to go through every word of the explosive interview after Spurs crashed out of the Champions League against Milan on Wednesday.
Richarlison spoke to the media afterwards and questioned Conte’s selection decisions, as well as labelling his debut season as ‘s***’.
Conte believes that the Brazilian did not criticise him directly, but insists the forward was ‘selfish’ during the rest of the interview.
Speaking on Friday ahead their home game against Nottingham Forest, he 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.
Antonio conte statement about richarlison interview
“For the rest of the interview, I think he understood he made a mistake. When you speak of ‘I’ and not ‘us’ you are being selfish.
I repeat to my players if we want to build something important, to try to fight to be competitive, and win a trophy we have to speak with ‘we’ not with ‘I’, because otherwise you’re thinking of yourself.
“He understood his mistake and he apologised and it was good for me to clarify with the importance of the spirit with the team. In this aspect we have to improve, we have to improve a lot.
“We have to be more of a team and show more spirit positive, especially in negative moments. I have good guys, but sometimes it’s not enough to be a good guy. You have to to show the right desire and fight to win the game, to win 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 about this situation 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 will happen here.”
Conte is under increasing pressure at Spurs following their poor form, and was even booed against Milan during the week.
His position is under scrutiny, but the Italian boss revealed he is still ready to give his all for the club despite the uncertainty over his future.
“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.” Watch Antonio Conte states selfish Richarlison on UKsports.
