Tottenham news – LIVE: Spurs chase next manager after Conte leaves

Massimiliano Allegri: 18/1

Antonio Conte has left Tottenham after only 16 months in charge. Spurs announced they had parted company with their manager late on Sunday evening.

Cristian Stellini has been placed in charge for the remainder of the season, but who is in the running for the permanent post this summer?

Here is a look at the contenders to replace the Italian.

The former Spurs boss remains out of work after he left his position at Paris St Germain at the end of last season. He insisted not long after his departure from Tottenham in 2019 that he had unfinished business after failing to win a trophy during his memorable five-and-a-half-year spell. A remarkable run to the Champions League final proved the pinnacle but he was sacked months later after a poor start to the 2019-20 season. The uncertainty over the Real Madrid managerial role and any reluctance from the Spurs board to admit his sacking was a mistake could prove a stumbling block.

One of football’s finest tactical brains has been finessing a unique strategy for a while now. It seems forever on the brink of succeeding. And yet, however often or vituperatively Antonio Conte criticises Tottenham, they refuse to sack him and pretend none of his comments are about Daniel Levy and the board.

Perhaps it is an approach born of a mixture of pragmatism and desperation, rationalising their chances of a top-four finish are higher even with Conte setting fire to the building on his way out than without him. Or maybe Tottenham simply think the greatest punishment they can give him is to force him to manage Tottenham for the rest of the season.

Whichever, Conte’s exit plan seems a little needless, given he is leaving when his contract expires anyway; not so much by mutual consent as mutual discontent. But part two of his gameplan always promised to be harder, and Conte is making it tougher again. He has to find another club and one more suited to his particular demands and the danger is that he is making himself the best unemployable manager in football.

Conte attacked his own players and questioned Tottenham’s mentality in an astonishing 10-minute rant, which was the latest of a series of incidents in which the manager criticised Spurs in public during his spell at the club.