Conte wants to bring World Cup finalist he managed at Inter to Spurs

For all of the excitement around his arrival, the early weeks of the Antonio Conte era at Tottenham Hotspur have been little more than disappointing. 

Since the former Chelsea boss returned to the capital and took the reins at Spurs, they have suffered an embarrassing defeat to Slovenian side NS Mura, as well as drawing with struggling Everton in Conte’s first league game in charge.

The Italian’s slow start to life at Tottenham is not dissimilar to his start at Chelsea, where he suffered defeats to Liverpool and Arsenal in the early weeks of the season, before changing his system and going on to guide the Blues to their fifth Premier League title.

While that may be outside the realms of possibility this season, Spurs fans could be about to witness one of Conte’s biggest positives in action.

The former Juventus boss is apparently close to luring Ivan Perisic to North London, as per Sport1.

Conte managed to Croat during his time in Italy with Inter Milan, and that has apparently given Spurs the edge over rivals Borussia Dortmund in the race to sign the 32-year-old.

Perisic has scored three goals in 13 Serie A matches this season.

Perisic, who was on the scoresheet during Croatia’s 2-1 victory over England in the 2018 World Cup semi-finals, is set to be out of contract at Inter in the summer.

The player would therefore be able to agree a deal with foreign clubs, namely Spurs, from January, however it is more likely that Inter would opt to cash in on the player for a small fee, rather than risk losing him for free next summer.

Perisic would add some much needed experience and quality to Spurs’ lacklustre attack, spearheaded by Harry Kane who still has only one Premier League goal to his name so far this term.

The winger has scored 48 times in 22 appearances for the Serie A side, and was managed by Conte during the Italian’s short spell with the club between 2019-2021, although Perisic was on loan at Bayern Munich during part of that period.