Levy: Mourinho, Conte hires were ‘mistakes’

Tottenham Hotspur chairman Daniel Levy has said it was a “mistake” to hire Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte as managers, adding that the Premier League club “needed to go back to its roots” with new boss Ange Postecoglou.

In March, former Juventus coach Conte became the second coach with several winners’ medals to leave the north London side in little more than three years. They also sacked Mourinho two years ago after the Portuguese was brought in to replace the hugely popular Mauricio Pochettino.

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Levy has been under fire in the past, with some Spurs fans blaming the 61-year-old for the club not winning any silverware since 2008.

“I want to win just as much as everybody else,” Levy said at a fan forum. “The frustration of not winning and the pressure from maybe some players and a large element of the fan base that we need to win, we need to spend money, we need to have a big manager, a big name. And it affected me.”

Pochettino was fired in 2019, just five months after leading Spurs to the Champions League final. The Argentine had a stint in charge of Paris Saint-Germain before taking over at Chelsea this summer. “I had gone through a period where we’d almost won, with Maurício we went through some very, very good times,” Levy said. “We didn’t quite get there but we came very close, and we had a change of strategy.

“The strategy was let’s bring in a trophy manager and we did it twice. You have to learn by the mistakes.”

However, Levy said they have got their “Tottenham back” with the appointment of Postecoglou, who has already managed to lift the gloom that was hanging over the club by guiding them to their best start to a league season in 57 years.

Spurs are second on the table with 13 points from five matches, just two points behind treble winners Manchester City. Spurs next visit London rivals Arsenal on Sunday before hosting third-placed Liverpool on Sept. 30.

“They [Mourinho and Conte] are great managers, but maybe not for this club,” Levy added. “For what we want, we want to play a certain way and if that means it has to take a little bit longer to win, maybe it’s the right thing for us. “And that’s why bringing Ange in was, from my viewpoint, exactly the right decision.”