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Antonio Conte responds to Richarlison's self criticism, says he is right.
Antonio Conte has responded to Richarlison's comment where he called his season "sh*t" and criticised his game time this season.
The Italian manager believes it was not a criticism directed at him, agreeing that Richarlison's season has indeed been poor.
What Conte said
Speaking to Italian reporters today, Conte acknowledged knowledge of Richarlison's interview, saying he has watched it.
However, he did not interpret what he watched as a criticism of him, as Richarlison expressed his displeasure at his limited playing time this season.
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Conte instead believed Richarlison was being self-critical, and he agreed with the striker's assessment of his season.
He explained that Richarlison's season has not been good, as he has struggled with injury and is yet to score a single league goal for Tottenham.
However, Conte explains that the season is not over yet, and on the matter of game time, he will feature when he earns it.
“First of all I watched the interview of Richarlison,” Conte said, per One Football.
“He didn’t criticise me. He said his season was shit and he’s right. His season has been not good. He had injuries, played and scored in the Champions League and then went to the World Cup and then had a serious injury.
“He’s scored no goals for us. I think he was really honest to say his season was not good. His season has not finished yet. If he deserves to play I’ll give him the opportunity.”
However, Conte castigated the player for taking a personal angle in the interview, saying he encourages his players to speak with the team as the focus and not themselves.
He revealed that he has pointed that out to Richarlison, and the player has apologised.
“For the rest of the interview, I think he made a mistake. When you speak of ‘I’ and not ‘us’ you are being selfish. I say to my players if we want to build something important and win a trophy we have to speak with ‘we’ not with ‘I’, because otherwise you’re thinking of yourself.”
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“He made a mistake and he apologised and it was good for me to clarify with the team again about this. In this aspect we have to improve. We have to be more of a team and show more spirit positive, especially in negative moments.”
Richarlison's comments
Following the 0-0 draw against AC Milan that saw Tottenham get knocked out of the Champions League, Richarlison, who started from the bench, was critical of the manager's decision to deny him a starting berth.
As we reported in detail here, Richarlison claimed he had really good games against Chelsea and Aston Villa, and he thought the decision not to start him against AC Milan was inexplicable.
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