I've been very critical of Conte lately and I don't think he's helping himself at all the way he's setting out your team in a system that leaves you vulnerable at the moment. I do find his constant moaning absolutely boring and extremely negative that is must impact the team. Dare I say, he actually sounds a bit defeated?
But equally, I think your board aren't helping this situation at all and now you have this stand off. It's basically a catch 22 situation where as much as he wants to strengthen the team, the board (or Levy) are refusing to back him given the contract situation. I think they don't trust that he's gonna stay past the Summer and are reluctant to get the chequebook out.
The board holds the power. They should have addressed this contract situation sooner so that come January, they could attack this window. If they don't have confidence in this contract being signed, personally I see no reason why they should hold on to Conte. It's silly to just play out the remainder of the season and is detrimental to the team.
There is part of me that thinks, "Hang on, you got Djed Spence in the Summer and you don't play him, it's your own fault" or "You signed Lenglet and Perisic and unfortunately, they haven't excelled, it's your own fault" as far as Conte is concerned.
But equally, to get to where you ultimately want to be, its the £40/£50m pound players that take you to that level now. Conte has an elitist mentality, he is a winner, we can knock him and criticise him all we want but he's won honours and he knows what it takes to get to that level. But clearly he's struggling to make the board see this and become almost disillusioned with the situation it looks.
It looks to me now like Spurs are going to play out the seasin and see what happens in the Summer now which basically means it's up to Conte to work with what he has, achieve what he can and then sort out where they go from here after that.
It's not how a top level club should be operating really, there should be a clear plan but that's the situation you are in.