Tottenham should sack Antonio Conte NOW after bringing the club into disrepute, writes SIMON JORDAN

In one outlandish, outrageous and staggeringly devoid of self-awareness post-match interview, we seemingly witnessed the attempted assassination of a football club. By its own manager.

What a despicable misrepresentation of his responsibilities that was by Antonio Conte.

Now most sensible observers would assume that was an oral resignation letter, but in reality there are most likely 3.5milllion reasons why he wouldn’t have the courage of his convictions to do that. He’s waiting for his pay-off.

Don’t wait for lawyers. Sack him now. He’s brought the club into disrepute, a breach of contract. He showed zero sense of his own culpability. 

Excusing himself, his decisions, his selections, his behaviour, while nuking everyone else at Tottenham. Don’t give him a penny.

Antonio Conte assassinated his own club in that press conference after drawing with Saints

How can Conte re-position this elsewhere and steer his dissatisfaction into a growing roar of malcontent from Spurs fans and their feeble trophy achievements? 

Conte is like a man escaping a burning house with the matches, but looking to blame everyone else for the flames.

Excuse me, Antonio, vecchio figlio mio. Losing a Champions League last-16 tie to an average AC Milan team, defeat against a weakened Sheffield United in the FA Cup — and, most recently, the substitutions made while leading 3-1 at bottom-of-the-table Southampton — are yours. They came on your watch.

In the interests of integrity, weeks before his Vesuvius-esque eruption to the media after drawing 3-3 at St Mary’s, I had naively calculated Conte would honour the obligations of his enormous contract and do his level best to guide Spurs to the Daniel Levy-driven promised land of fourth in the table. 

I wrote then about the importance for Spurs and their chairman of keeping Harry Kane beyond his current contract, throwing the kitchen sink at him, supporting Conte and striving to win a trophy.

A bad record can become a hit with a remixed version and a jolly parade around Wembley would change the narrative. That column should now be filed under W for wishful thinking.

Spurs are losing their grip on a top four spot and will go another season without silverware

Conte has showed zero sense of his own culpability whilst nuking everyone else at Tottenham

Daniel Levy shouldn’t wait for lawyers. Sack Conte now. He’s brought the club into disrepute

I’m not here to defend Daniel, who can sometimes save a pound to lose a fiver, but there is no way he appointed Conte with the order to win the Champions League and/or Premier League.

The brief would have been this: be competitive, consolidate in the top four and qualify again for the Champions League, build our team, push forward. 

Antonio, you are the man, with your experience and your success, to take us to the next level. You never know. Maybe even try to win an FA Cup.

Conte has not been sold a pup. He wasn’t sold a Fiat with expectations of a Formula One car. This season he was given £192million to spend on players and asked to deliver progress. That’s more than the money spent by the two previous incumbents, Jose Mourinho (£131m) and Nuno Espirito Santo (£57m).

Yes, there is a historic problem with Spurs; they snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Even though they boast a generational footballer in Kane. 

In Daniel’s 22 years at the helm, they have had seven top-four finishes, five FA Cup semi-finals, one League Cup win, four runners-up and three semi-final losses and one Champions League final defeat.

With the exception of the misguided appointment of Nuno, they have appointed historic, proven winners in recent times in Mourinho and Conte. 

Yet it seems the players, despite falling short, have possibly exerted power to oust someone like Mourinho, or in this situation, reduce Conte to a simmering demented-sounding Tasmanian devil.

Conte has spent more money on players at Tottenham than the two previous incumbents, Jose Mourinho (left) and Nuno Espirito Santos (right)

Conte is a spoilt, over-indulged football manager, beset with the sense of entitlement

In one of the lowlights of his rant at Southampton, he turned on his ‘selfish’ players, showing this Italian does not have the patience or feeling that can grow success, build a culture, dare I say it actually coach and improve footballers as he once did with one of my old charges, Victor Moses, at Chelsea where he turned him into a phenomenal wing back in a change of formation, resulting in a Premier League trophy in 2017.

What Conte in his current incarnation really represents, rather than the nailed-on winner I had him down for, is a spoilt, over-indulged football manager, beset with the sense of entitlement and the embodiment of a growing trend of managers getting paid eff-you money and ultimately being able to tell everyone and everything to eff-off. It’s time to go.

Leaving Tottenham and their chairman to deliver an inspired managerial appointment, much like his recruitment of Mauricio Pochettino in 2014, but this time with someone who could win something… and I don’t mean another raid on the Chelsea discarded cupboard in Thomas Tuchel. That won’t do. We’ve seen how that ends up.

Spare us, Shearer

Alan Shearer, dullard No 3, apologised to the nation — or his version of it — as the BBC solidarity gang did us all a favour and went back to work, explaining what an awful position he thinks he and his colleagues were put in.

Alan, you weren’t put in a position. Your mate decided to say things that the leading face of sport at the BBC should not have said and you and your gang, the other virtue-signalling fools, went out and compounded the problem, creating a race to the bottom for what the BBC may well now become.

Your little attempted apology this past Saturday showed how important you think you are. And how out of touch you are.

Alan Shearer’s (left) apology this past Saturday showed us how out of touch he is

Sky turn a blind eye in Saudi

We have witnessed the full hypocrisy of Sky Sports. 

They talk endlessly about anti-discrimination with every single breath, with pundits wearing anti-racism badges and waving flags with LGBT colours, yet they then promoted the life out of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix without any thought to the backdrop of the chilling human right issues in that country. 

Roy is exactly what Palace need right now

With the exception of what happened last season, when he couldn’t help Watford avoid relegation, Roy Hodgson is the managerial equivalent of Ronseal: he does what it says on the tin.

He may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but he may well galvanise a toothless, passive Crystal Palace and pull my old mate Steve Parish out of the proverbial.

Roy Hodgson may well galvanise a toothless and passive Crystal Palace in their relegation fight

Why Maguire has earned my respect 

Harry Maguire, a mediocre centre half being picked by a man who knows all about being a mediocre centre half, will be on England’s team sheet tonight.

While Maguire goes in to the shop window as a member of Gareth Southgate’s defence, I question what the future holds. ‘Why Maguire has to leave United,’ was one headline at the weekend. 

I’m not so sure how easily that happens. His direction of travel this season is not a positive one. Think about it. For the first time, Maguire has an elite manager determining his future. For the first time in his career, he isn’t being picked. What does that tell you about all those involved? Good enough for Southgate, not in the frame for Erik ten Hag.

Harry Maguire (right) has spent most of this season on the bench for Manchester United

Erik ten Hag has preferred Martinez and Varane at the heart of United’s defence this season

He remains the world’s most expensive defender, but he took advantage of the landscape of mediocrity that existed at United before this fella came. He is a pumped-up, mid-ranking central defender. 

The best he can do if he is moving away from United is a transfer shift sideways at best, or to go backwards, more likely.

I imagine he will have to be dragged out kicking and screaming from Old Trafford and while I don’t admire him completely as a player, he, at least, seems determined to try to change the narrative at his club and play his part, rather than taking a giant step towards oblivion at somewhere like West Ham.

He wants to prove his point. We are not talking Winston Bogarde. Or Ryan Fraser.

Eddie Howe ordered Ryan Fraser to train with Newcastle’s Under 21s squad earlier this month

He hasn’t thrown the baby out with the bath water.

He has been prepared to play, when asked. And I’d much rather that than a player, like Fraser, who I once called a turd for the circumstances in which he departed Bournemouth as they were being relegated and he wouldn’t extend his contract by a month to help them out. 

Now we see him dispatched to train with the juniors by Eddie Howe. Give me Maguire’s attitude over someone like Fraser any day.

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