Despite saying he wanted to draw a line under their scuffle, Antonio Conte has reignited his feud with Thomas Tuchel in a message posted on social media after the game.
The two managers clashed at Stamford Bridge on Sunday after Tottenham twice came from behind to grab a late 2-2 draw thanks to Harry Kane’s header.
Chelsea felt aggrieved with the refereeing in the game, with Tuchel calling for both a foul on Havertz in an earlier phase of play before Tottenham’s first equaliser and an offside on the goal, with Richarlison appearing to obscure Mendy’s view.
Tuchel’s protestations, coupled with Conte’s celebrations, saw a heated argument coming together on the sidelines and both coaches were shown a yellow card.
Then, prior to Kane’s late header, Chelsea felt Romero should have been punished for tugging Cucurella’s hair, though VAR looked at the incident and decided it was not a serious foul play.
At full-time, Conte and Tuchel went to shake hands but the Chelsea manager would not let go of his rival manager’s hand, gesturing for him to look in his eyes, prompting another melee as both of them were given their marching orders.
While Tuchel was happy to talk about the altercation – saying he wanted to ‘look into each other’s eyes’ during the handshake – Conte was evasive in his interview with Sky Sports, saying he only wanted to talk about the game.
But his opinion changed after returning home, uploading a video of Tuchel running straight out of his technical area, past Conte and the Spurs dugout and along the touchline after Reece James made the score 2-1.
The Spurs head coach had his head down as Tuchel strode past him, and the Italian coach wrote on Instagram: ‘Lucky I didn’t see you… Making you trip over would have been well deserved.’
While Conte did not want to spend much time discussing handshake-gate afterwards, he made it clear that he felt Tuchel had been the aggressor – and perhaps, therefore, the only one that deserved a red card.
‘Honestly the referee showed me a red card but he didn’t understand the dynamic of what happened,’ said Conte.
‘But it’s ok I have to accept, but I repeat this is not a big problem. It’s not important. The problem is between me and the other coach, not for the others.
‘For sure there is a video to understand what happened. For sure I am not passive. If I see aggressivity, then my answer is with aggressivity but I repeat this is not a problem. The most important thing is the game was a great game with two teams where there is a big rivalry.’
