Antonio Conte reveals why he started Richarlison for Tottenham Hotspur vs Nottingham Forest
Ahead of the game against Nottingham Forest in the Premier League on Saturday, Richarlison criticised manager Antonio Conte for not handing him enough minutes.
It was a public comment directed at the former Juventus and Chelsea manager, who responded by agreeing with the Brazil international’s self-assessment that he had a poor season. A potential controversy, if there wasn’t one already, seemed to be on the horizon.
But Conte decided to take the high road and instead of punishing the former Everton forward in some manner, decided to hand him just his eighth league start of the season when his team faced the Tricky Trees.
Speaking to Sky Sports (h/t BBC) after his team’s 3-1 win at home against manager Steve Cooper’s side, Conte answered why Richarlison was picked ahead of Dejan Kulusevski.
“With Richarlison, I always try to make the best decision about the starting 11 and today I prefer to start with Richarlison and rest Dejan. I don’t understand the people that doesn’t understand the importance of rotation. You have good players on the bench and then you can change the game.
“If you want to aspire to win trophies in the future, you have to count on about 16, 17, 18 players to make rotation and play game by game. When players say they want to play, they have to perform and then if they are tired, they don’t perform and you might enjoy because you played but we lost the game.”
This shouldn’t be seen as Conte buckling to the pressure imposed by Richarlison’s comments. We invested heavily in the 26-year-old for moments like these, where we could rotate our team and mix things up front.
Richarlison being rested against AC Milan in the second leg UEFA Champions League tie, where we ended up being eliminated, would have been a surprise to many. But someone had to be benched out of our brilliant front four.
Richarlison responded to Conte’s trust against Forest by assisting two goals. He could have had a goal to his name when his strike, which would have made the game 1-0, was ruled out for offside by VAR in the first half.
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Deki, meanwhile, came on for the last six minutes and ended up conceding a penalty in stoppage time with the scoreline at 3-1, with Andre Ayew missing it. It was a mistake, however, but given the contrast in their displays, it remains to be seen if the Sweden international will remain benched in our next game Southampton, which is on 18 March.
Before the Forest clash, the former Juventus winger started in all of our last eight league games.
