Harry Winks wants to show Antonio Conte ‘mistake’ after Tottenham exit

Antonio Conte knows Tottenham are still a long way off competing for title

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Sampdoria chairman Marco Lanna claims that Tottenham outcast Harry Winks is keen to prove Antonio Conte wrong in Serie A. The Spurs boss discarded Winks in the final week of the transfer window with four midfielders already scrapping for minutes in north London. 

Winks joined Tottenham’s academy as a schoolboy and stayed a one-club man until the end of last month. A lack of game time under Conte saw him shipped out to Sampdoria, who reportedly have an option to make the season-long loan move permanent at the end of the campaign. 

That’s not the midfielder’s only motivation to play well, however, as Lanna claims that he is keen to prove Conte’s mistake in letting him go. “Winks resumes training this week and rejoins the group next week, so I’m told,” he explained.

“For us, he can be very important. He’s a player who wants to play. He’s not afraid of pain. I’m confident that he will take the field as soon as he can. He wants to prove that Tottenham made a mistake. You will see it when he’s on the pitch.”

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Conte evidently determined that Winks’ prospects of first-team football at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium were slim to none this campaign. Rodrigo Bentancur and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg are already keeping summer signing Yves Bissouma out of the team, while Oliver Skipp has re-entered the equation after recovering from a long-term injury. 

Winks was a regular for Spurs between 2018 and 2020, making 82 appearances across two seasons and solidifying his place in the English national team set-up. The 26-year-old hasn’t featured for the Three Lions since 2020, which he could put right with a positive run of form in Serie A. 

Fikayo Tomori, Tammy Abraham and Chris Smalling are among the English stars to have ditched the Premier League for Italian football and found success. Ex-Spurs youth product Marcus Edwards is another, and he dazzled for Sporting Lisbon in a 2-0 win over his former club on Tuesday evening. 

Stoppage time goals from Paulinho and Arthur consigned Conte to an unexpected Champions League defeat after Spurs toppled Marseille in their opening Group D fixture. After the final whistle, the Italian called on his players to be wary of making so many mistakes but claimed that a draw would have been a fair result. 

“The level of the Champions League is high,” he said. “It’s very high. you know that to play in this competition you have to reduce the mistakes, because at the end you can pay. It’s a pity.

“You have to continue to improve yourself but this is normal. It’s right to continue to improve this process with the players. Don’t forget that last season in November we lost to NS Mura in the Conference League in Slovenia. I think that we then made an important step forward, because tonight in my opinion it was more fair a draw than a defeat honestly.”

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