Tottenham manager Antonio Conte is still living in a hotel in London four months after joining the club.
The 52-year-old’s circumstances were revealed when Christian Eriksen mentioned that the first person he met after checking in for his football relaunch at Brentford was the man who had been his boss at Inter Milan.
In a similar way, Conte spent a year in a hotel suite when he first came to London as Chelsea manager in 2016 - living alone while his wife Elisabetta and daughter Vittoria remained in Italy.
However, after a successful first season at Stamford Bridge in which Conte took the 10th-placed team to the Premier League title, the pair settled in England for his second season in charge.
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Having moved back to Italy a year later when he was sacked after winning the FA Cup but failing to deliver Champions League football, they remained there when Conte agreed to replace Nuno Espirito Santo at White Hart Lane in November.
And this time there are no plans for Conte’s domestic circumstances to change any time soon.
“I remember very well in my first season at Chelsea my family stayed in Italy and then came to England,” he said.
“But my daughter, she is now 14 years old. It is bad to again change school and change her location now she is starting to have friendships.
“I understand it.
“I also have this responsibility with her.”
That does not mean that Vittoria would be shy about jumping on a plane with her mum to join Conte when the opportunity arises.
“At the same time I know that my daughter loves England and loves London and it would be easy to bring her back again to London,” Conte said.
In the past, Conte has admitted that his wife - who he finally married in 2013 after the couple had already been together 15 years - was a useful sounding board for how he is doing in his coaching role.
“My wife knows me very well,” he said in a 2017 interview for GQ magazine. “I didn't go out with her till after I stopped playing so she only knows me really as a coach.
“At the start of the season at Chelsea, my wife watched the early games and at the end she said, ‘Look, Antonio, I saw the previous games with the previous team. They listened to you.
“‘These players are not listening to you.’”
Certainly right now Conte’s family are never far from his thoughts as Russia ’s invasion of Ukraine continues.
“In 2022, it’s incredible to think – only to think – that we could even have the possibility of a war,” he said.
“It’s incredible for ourselves, the new generation, the children, everybody.
“It’s incredible to stay here now, with coaches and the players, and speak about this topic. In 2022, it's incredible.
