Stellini seeks to pick up the pieces at Tottenham after week of chaos

C ristian Stellini has been here before: a press conference now and then when Antonio Conte was unavailable; sometimes preparing to lead Tottenham into a game. But not like this. Not as the man in charge for a significant period – 10 Premier League matches to be precise, when the Champions League qualification push will be decided. Not as the face of the club, the de facto spokesman for anything and everything. And right now, it is everything. “A bit chaotic, absolutely,” Stellini said when asked to sum it up.

Stellini wants to focus on the football, starting at Everton on Monday night, having been shuffled into the manager’s job until the end of the season after Conte’s departure on Sunday by mutual consent. When José Mourinho left Chelsea for the first time in 2007, the same explanation was given and he had been asked what it meant. “Look it up in the dictionary,” Mourinho advised.

Conte’s exit was the definition of it. He did not want to stay and he had given that impression for a number of months; the club did not want to keep him. But that was where any agreement ended, Conte going down in a blaze of acrimony and score-settling; threatening to take everyone with him, too.

It felt as though Spurs tried to spirit him off under the cloak of darkness, the separation announcement dropping at 10.20pm. Nobody will notice then? A little like Mourinho’s sacking in 2021 on the morning after the European Super League story had broken and people were in a state of agitation and distraction.

Daniel Levy is searching for a 12th permanent manager in 22 years as the chairman and yet it says plenty about the week that Spurs have had and the situation at the club that it has merely come to vie for prominence at the top of the news