Antonio Conte lasted 17 months as Tottenham manager – but what kind of legacy did leave behind at the club?
The Italian tactician had a somewhat mixed record with the 12 players he signed for the club, but what about the players that departed under his watch? Do Spurs have any regrets about the players that they let go?
We’ve taken a look back at the eight players that have been sold or released whilst Conte was in charge and how they’ve fared since leaving.
We haven’t included loaned-out players like Djed Spence, Tanguy Ndombele, Joe Rodon, and Sergio Reguilon. We’ve also excluded academy talents who were released or moved on from the list of players who made first-team appearances for the club.
Dele Alli
Where to start with this one?
Once one of the brightest prospects in English football, Alli’s stock waned so much at Tottenham that they were happy to let him go for free.
He joined Everton midway through the 2021-22 season but failed to make much of an impact in their battle against the drop and has since been loaned out to Turkish Super Lig giants Besiktas – but he couldn’t reignite his career away from the spotlight out in Istanbul.
Dele has since returned to his parent club and spoke refreshingly candidly about the impact of his tough upbringing and mental health battles. Everton are giving him all the time he needs to get himself right to play again. We’re all rooting for him.
And while things haven’t gone brilliantly on the pitch in recent times, he did gift us this delightful moment last season.
Dilan Markanday
Markanday pretty much falls into the “peripheral academy player” bracket, but he did make one senior appearance for his boyhood club as a substitute in a 1-0 Europa Conference League defeat to Vitesse.
Not only that but he made history as the first British-Asian player to play for Tottenham and fifth to play for a Premier League club.
“For me, it was an unbelievable feeling to make my debut for this great club, a moment I’ve been working towards and dreaming about since I was a young boy,” he told the official Spurs website.
The 21-year-old striker had to move on to find further opportunities, however. He signed for Blackburn Rovers in January 2022 and has since made 13 appearances in all competitions, scoring four goals for the club.
He spent the latter half of last season out on loan at Aberdeen but has since returned to his parent club.
J’Neil Bennett
Same deal as above. Bennett progressed through the Spurs academy since 2017, and he was handed his first-team debut in a Europa Conference League defeat to Pacos de Ferreira.
No further opportunities were forthcoming and after half a season out on loan at Crewe Alexandra, he was released at the end of the 2021-22 campaign.
The 21-year-old winger since went on trial at Brentford B and earned himself a one-year contract but he never made an appearance for Thomas Frank’s Bees and was let go in the summer. He’s currently a free agent.
Marcel Lavinier
A familiar tale, Lavinier’s one Spurs appearance came back in February 2021 as a late substitute in a 4-0 Europa League win over Wolfsberger AC.
The left-back was let go last year and went on to sign for Swindon Town, where he notched two goals in 23 League Two appearances last term. He then joined Forest Green Rovers in the summer.
Steven Bergwijn
The Dutch international’s insanely late brace at Leicester was probably one of the highlights of the Conte reign, but he never did quite enough to nail down a regular place in the Italian’s favoured XI.
Having joined Spurs from PSV, he then controversially returned to the Netherlands to sign for their rivals Ajax.
The attacker is Ajax’s club captain, but the Dutch giants have struggled since the departure of Erik ten Hag last summer. They failed to maintain the league championship last season and are currently 14th, thirteen points behind league leaders PSV.
Cameron Carter-Vickers
Formerly a perennial loanee, going out on loan to no fewer than seven clubs while on Tottenham’s books, it never looked as though US international Carter-Vickers was ever going to break through and stake his claim at his parent club.
He never made a Premier League appearance for Spurs and his only opportunities came in the cup competitions.
However, the defender made a big step up during his final loan away, playing a vital role as Ange Postecoglou’s Celtic took the Scottish title back from Rangers.
Carter-Vickers then joined the Bhoys for a reported £6million fee on a four-year deal. He was a near ever-present last term as they retained their title and remains a key player under Postecoglou’s successor Brendan Rodgers.
Jack Clarke
Tottenham’s first signing in over 500 days back in the summer of 2019, highly-rated youngster Clarke joined from Leeds United for a fee of up to £10million.
However, he didn’t get minutes when loaned back to Leeds and never really kicked on in subsequent loans at Stoke and QPR. He spent some time with his parent club but featured more for their Under-21s than the first team.
It took a loan to Sunderland to get Clarke’s career back on track. He played a key role in the Black Cats’ playoff promotion from League One in 2021-22 and subsequently signed permanently for an undisclosed fee thought to be a small fraction of what Spurs originally bought him for.
However, with a settled role in Wearside, Clarke seems to have found his place. He’s been one of Sunderland’s most outstanding players under Tony Mowbray and could well fire the Black Cats to another play-off charge this season.
Clarke has taken the long way round but we expect to see him back in the Premier League sooner or later.
Matt Doherty
A penny for his thoughts.
The Republic of Ireland international was originally supposed to go out on loan to Atletico Madrid, but Spurs hit their loanee limit on deadline day so they allowed him to terminate his contract instead.
He then joined the Spanish giants on a short-term deal but unsurprisingly didn’t stick around after playing just 16 minutes of first-team football under Diego Simeone.
But Doherty doesn’t have any regrets about the experience.
I have learned to deal with it,” he said whilst away on international duty in the spring.
“I am at Atleti until the end of the season and I am using it as a learning experience. I am improving by training with world-class players every day. I am using the six months I have there to try to improve, to try to better understand the game, and improve in general.”
He rejoined Wolves as a free agent in the summer. Being uncharitable, we’d question whether he might’ve saved himself a lot of trouble had he just stayed put at Molineux all this time.