sport news Antonio Conte's tenure has unravelled at speed and Spurs have made no progress trends now
Only 10 months have passed but the jubilant scenes in the East Anglian sunshine have long since faded from memory.
Tottenham scored five at Norwich to finish fourth above Arsenal and Son Heung-min claimed a Golden Boot. Antonio Conte spoke of a 'miracle' and the 'biggest challenge' of his coaching career to revive a team wallowing in eighth to reach the Champions League.
Then flew back to Italy and informed managing director Fabio Paratici he was ready to commit to another season, the rest of his contract.
Paratici delivered a blaze of early summer signings and all seemed positive but things have a habit of unravelling at speed where Conte is concerned and so it has proved to be the case again in a season to forget.
Setback after setback culminated in the March meltdown, one win from five games, dumped out of two cup competitions and the post-match eruption at Southampton where Tottenham turned three points into one by leaking two late goals.
Antonio Conte's reign at Tottenham unravelled very quickly after a promising start
Conte launched a furious tirade at his own players after Spurs drew 3-3 at Southampton
Conte has now headed for the exit door at Tottenham and those who said it would never last were right again.
What seemed to be a bold and ambitious appointment by Daniel Levy, spending big on a demanding manager with a winning pedigree, ends up looking like a waste of time, very much like the bold and ambitious move for Jose Mourinho.
On reflection, Conte's second season started to go wrong almost as soon as it started when Fraser Forster and Yves Bissouma, two of the six new recruits, contracted Covid on the pre-season tour of South Korea.
They spent all week in their room and stayed behind in quarantine as the rest of the squad flew back to London after two games. For Bissouma, who cost £25million from Brighton and failed to fight his way into the Spurs team, it would prove a bad omen.
Other injuries littered the weeks leading up to the World Cup. Cristian Romero, Dejan Kulusevski and Richarlison spent time out. Son's goals vanished and the football was far from fluent.
But perhaps the greatest blow to Conte was the sudden death of his close friend, confidante and Tottenham's fitness guru Gian Piero Ventrone at the age of 62, in October, days after he asked to be excused from the Champions League tie at Eintracht Frankfurt because he felt unwell.
The loss of Ventrone had a profound impact on 53-year-old Conte and there would be aftershocks when close associates Sinisa Mihajlovic and Gianluca Vialli died, within weeks of each other in December and January.
Then came Conte's own health scare. Abdominal pains in January and an operation to remove his gallbladder on February 1. He rushed back too soon, determined to prepare for the Champions
