Jose Mourinho reacts to Antonio Conte's appointment at Tottenham

Jose Mourinho has claimed Tottenham already had a 'very good coach' in Nuno Espirito Santo before the club decided to ditch him in favour of Antonio Conte.

Spurs won five and lost five of their opening ten Premier League games under Nuno this season, but the manner of some those defeats - particularly the 3-0 thrashing to a wounded Manchester United - resulted in the former Wolves boss being axed on Monday.

Serie A and Premier League title winner Conte signed an 18-month contract with the north London club on Tuesday, immediately lifting the mood surrounding Spurs after what had been a seriously dreary start to the campaign.

Part of that poor mood can be attributed to Mourinho, who oversaw a terrible run of form from the start of 2021 until he was sacked in April. He has now given his verdict on their latest managerial switch.

“I think Conte is a good coach, but Nuno is a very good coach,” he said.

“He did a fantastic job at Wolverhampton for 4-5 years, not one year or a few months. That’s why I say Tottenham have a very good coach now, but they also had that with Nuno.”

The two managers famously had a spat when Conte was in charge of Chelsea and Mourinho was at Manchester United.

While it started with Mourinho being unhappy with Conte's antics during Chelsea's 4-0 victory over United in 2016, the spat continued over time, with the former intimating he thought of the latter as a 'clown' for his exuberant celebrations. Conte frequently called his Blues predecessor a 'little man' after a 0-0 draw with Norwich.

It looked like the pair would face off in Serie A this season when Mourinho got the Roma job, but Conte left Inter before they got the chance. Now that he has taken the reins at Spurs, however, they could meet in the Europa Conference League at some stage.

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