Antonio Conte confirms Tottenham decision on Lucas Moura contract
By Tom Gott
Antonio Conte has confirmed that Tottenham have decided against offering a contract extension to Brazilian forward Lucas Moura.
The 30-year-old has made 11 appearances this season but those outings have lasted just 269 minutes overall, with all but two of his Premier League showings lasting less than ten minutes.
Now in the final six months of his contract, Lucas will not be offered an extension and will leave the club at the end of the season on a free transfer, with Conte confirming the decision was made by those in charge at Tottenham.
"This is the decision of the club, his contract will not be extended," Conte said.
Despite his limited usage of Lucas, Conte insisted he had planned for the Brazilian to play a bigger role this season before injuries got in the way.
"Honestly, in my mind when we planned the season Lucas was an important player for us," the boss explained. "But if you see from he start of the season until now Lucas played maybe one game, also with pain in the Champions League against Marseille and also not the whole game with us.
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"First of all I think the damage is for me and the team. A player like Lucas is a good player. Also last season he helped us reach the Champions League.
"In my mind, my plan was to have him in my squad but we didn’t have possibility to use him because of the injuries. It was really difficult this season especially because it happened twice that Kulusevski and Richarlison were both injured. To face this wasn’t easy. Then if you ask about the decision of the club, I respect the decision of the club."
Lucas joined from Paris Saint-Germain for a fee of around £25m in January 2018 and has since racked up 38 goals and 27 assists in 213 appearances for Spurs.