Tottenham boss Conte blasted for ‘madness’ training routine which is ‘annihilating’ squad

Antonio Conte vows to make Harry Kane even better

We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info

Former Liverpool defender Steve Nicol has blasted Antonio Conte for his “nonsense” training sessions that led to England captain Harry Kane throwing up during pre-season in South Korea. The Italian boss is renowned for making his players work hard, especially before the season has started, but Nicol believes he is pushing the squad too hard.

Several Spurs players fell to the floor during a brutal two-hour training session in the Seoul heat in their third training session in just over 24 hours, and when asked what the players could be getting out of the regiment, Nicol gave a blunt response.

“Brain damage, that’s what they’re getting out of it,” he told ESPN. “Three times? This is madness, this three-times a-day nonsense and running 42 lengths of the pitch at the end of the day, on your third.

“I’m sorry, there’s one thing to get your players fit but there’s another thing to try and break them because that kind of seems to me what’s happening here. I don’t understand that whatsoever, I never have, this three times a day and completely annihilating players.”

Conte has been a big believer in pushing his players to their physical limits during pre-season, which has brought him success after winning the Premier League with Chelsea, and four Serie A titles with Juventus and Inter Milan. However, Nicol does not believe his vigorous training is the reason why he has achieved so much success.

“He took over Juventus who were streets ahead of anyone else in Italy,” Nicol added. “They won seven titles on the trot and you can’t tell me that was down to the pre-season and the training and the running the guts out of them.

DON’T MISS
Chelsea ‘receive response’ from Juventus after ‘offering two players’ for Matthijs de Ligt
Chelsea target Matthijs de Ligt picks between Premier League and Bayern Munich transfer
Chelsea to submit mega £43m Matheus Nunes transfer offer in ‘next few hours’

“They just had far better players. He comes to Chelsea, buys a load of good players, and then after a couple of years the players got sick of him because of the way he was.

“You can’t argue that the reason he has been successful is because of that, it wouldn’t be an argument for me. He has been successful because he knows about his tactics and he knows his players and all that stuff. Running the guts out of players, what does that get you?”

Spurs full-back Emerson Royal has previously revealed that he gets upset with Conte as the Italian continuously pushes him in training. “There are some physical training, sometimes we do a strong training, it ends, and I finish the training dead,” Emerson told ESPN Brasil. “I arrive at training the next day, and he’s [Conte] like, ‘Emerson, I didn’t like your training yesterday.’ It’s not possible, then I start to get mad already. ‘How did you not like my training yesterday? I gave life, finished training dead’.”

Source: Read Full Article