Antonio Conte walked into his press conference with an apology for keeping everyone waiting. It was the calm before the storm because for what he said next he was making no apologies for whatsoever.
This was Conte unleashed. He's been honest and upfront before - notably after dismal defeats to Mura and Burnley - but this was the Italian truly in full cry, full attack and full self-preservation mode. At times he was shouting at the assembled media, hitting the desk in front of him and getting himself more and more worked up.
This was the other side to Conte that Spurs would have known they were taking on back in November 2021. He was never going to go quietly into the night.
READ MORE: Every word of Antonio Conte's remarkable and furious press conference about Tottenham
While there was no mention from the head coach of his own share of the blame he might have in this mess himself, there was certainly plenty of truth in what was a 10 minute-long furious and emotional-filled monologue about Tottenham Hotspur.
His flow was fragmented briefly by questions which were merely a pivot for Conte to launch deeper into his diatribe. There was only time for four questions because of the length of the Italian's answers and each one only made him angrier, stoking him up further.
Conte had not even said a word to his Tottenham players before he made his way to the press conference room deep with St Mary's Stadium, perhaps because he was saving everything for those sat outside the dressing room containing the near silent, brooding squad.
Conte was livid with their late collapse, making it 40 goals Spurs have conceded in the Premier League this season - a worse tally than anyone else in the top 12. For context, Crystal Palace have just sacked Patrick Viera and his side have conceded six fewer than Tottenham.
The problem is that when it comes to Tottenham Hotspur you know that at 3-1 up with 15 minutes to go nobody associated with the club was ever going to be confident that the victory was in the bag, even against the team with the worst home form in the Premier League.
So it proved to be once again. Southampton gathered in a huddle to regroup, the home fans upped their noise and Spurs crumbled accordingly.
That's what Conte was taking aim at mainly afterwards. It's become part of the culture at the club, an attitude that permeates around the place. The 'Spursy' tag is one that everyone connected with Tottenham hates but it's a label that's difficult to escape or disprove. The club reeks of a fear of the inevitability of failure rather than the courage to remove it.
Conte admitted to Sky Sports: "Today we were winning 3-1 and felt the perception that anything can happen and we're scared."
In his press conference, he expanded on the culture of the club: "They are used to it here, they are used to it. They don't play for something important yeah? They don't want to play under pressure, they don't want to play under stress. It is easy in this way. Tottenham's story is this. 20 years there is the owner and they never won something but why?
"The fault is only for the club, or for every manager that stay here? I have seen the managers that Tottenham had on the bench. You risk to disrupt the figure of the manager and to protect the other situation in every moment.
"Until now I try to hide the situation but now no because I don't want to see what I have seen today because this is unacceptable and also unacceptable for the fans. They follow us, pay for the ticket and to see the team another time to have this type of performance is unacceptable. We have to think a lot about this."
After the win against Forest a week ago, Conte said in his post-match press conference: "Today in my players I have seen the fire in their eyes."
He was asked on Saturday evening where that fire had gone and what had changed in the space of a week. That prompted a snarling rewrite of history.
"I said that I wanted to see the fire, not that I have seen. It is different. I said that I want to see the fire in their eyes, in their hearts. I want to see the right spirit. Ok?" said Conte. "Not only in the training session, on the pitch, because here you have to make the difference.
"I am not saying this, and until now I try to hide the situation but now, there are 10 games to go and some people think we can fight. Fight for what with his spirit, this attitude, this commitment? What? For seventh, eighth, 10th place? I am not used to this position. I’m really upset and everyone has to take their responsibility.
"Not only the club, the manager and the staff, the players have to be involved in this situation because it is time to change this situation if Tottenham want to change. If they want to continue in this way, they can change the manager, a lot of managers, but the situation cannot change. Believe me."
On Thursday Conte had said that he did not believe the club were thinking about sacking him and he had only been joking after the Champions League exit about them carrying out such an action.
Just 48 hours on and nobody was laughing. While seemingly trying to claim that the club didn't deserve all the flak and the players deserved their fair share, he uttered the words that may end up as his club epitaph: "Tottenham's story is this. 20 years there is the owner and they never won something but why?"
While it came within the context of him defending the club, he was only highlighting two decades' worth of failures under owners ENIC and that will not have been taken well by the powers-that-be who have never been too keen on having their shortcomings pointed out by those they hire. Conte is understood to have clarified his comments to the board after the game and indicated that they were aimed solely at the players.
The main problem though for Conte could well be those players. It was fair to place them under the spotlight after another embarrassing collapse and this could have simply been another orchestrated Conte performance in order to get a reaction.
He admitted last season that his post-Burnley rant was all premeditated in order to get his players to respond, but the concern this time could be whether this press conference performance went too far and if certain players will now turn against him.
"We are 11 players that go into the pitch. I see selfish players, I see players that don't want to help each other and don't put their heart," he told football.london. "Before today I prefer to hide this situation and to try to speak, to try to improve the spirit, the situation, with the words, With a lot of situations, because about tactical or technical aspect, this is one situation.
"The most important thing if you want to become a strong team, if you want to become competitive, if you want to fight to win, is the desire, the fire that you need to have in your eyes , in your heart, and you have to show this in every moment. In every moment.
"If I have to compare last season and this season, we have to improve, but now we are worse in this aspect. When you are not a team, anything can happen, in any moment. Today is the last situation.
"Don’t forget that in the FA Cup we lost to Sheffield United, who played with young players. We were able with a strong team, to be dropped from the FA Cup, and then a lot of situations, I repeat, that we are not going to improve, and I am not speaking about tactical aspect or technical aspect.
"About being a team, being a team, being a team, it is the most important thing. To understand that we play for the badge. We have to play to make our fans proud of us. We have to pay to show desire. The fire in your eyes to win. If you have this for sure, you don't go out in FA Cup. Today you win.
"We have to play to make our fans proud of us, we have to play to show desire. The fire in your eyes to win. If you have this, for sure, you don't go out in the FA Cup, and today we'd win.
"Maybe previously in the other games something can change, but here we're used to it for a long time. The club has the responsibility for the transfer market, every coach that stayed here has the responsibility, and the players? The players? Where are the players? In my experience, I can tell you that if you want to be competitive, if you want to fight, you have to improve this aspect. And this aspect, I can tell you, in this moment is really, really low. And I see only 11 players that play for themselves."
Conte was going for all of them. Nobody was spared his wrath but with many of those players now heading off on international duty, they will scatter in different directions away from his fury to the comfort of other managers.
How they react to being called 'selfish' and having their commitment to Spurs questioned is going to play a big part in what comes next for Conte if the club believe he can no longer motivate his squad.
The players might reflect that they won three big games while the Italian was recovering in Italy and only finally lost two in the week when he was set to return. In 2023, Tottenham have won just three of the 10 games Conte has been present for in the Premier League and Champions League, losing five and drawing two.
There's no denying - and he admits it himself - that Tottenham have gone backwards under his stewardship in his second season.
Spurs can also be desperately dull to watch, often relying on individual flashes of magic rather than the end product of the system installed. That is just about acceptable with good results but completely unacceptable without them, and even more so with the local rivals down the road showing what good football can look like with young players being infused with the right mentality.
Yet Conte refuses to acknowledge that the uncertainty over his future might just be one reason for the players not giving their all to his cause. One reporter attempted to put that to the Spurs head coach on Saturday and he was interrupted before the first few words had left his mouth.
"You are finding an alibi, another alibi," Conte shot back, getting progressively angrier and raising his voice. "You try to find an excuse for the players. OK, continue to do this, to find an excuse for the players.
"You do only this! You do only this. Excuses for the players. 'But the players, maybe, my future, then we lost confidence, they lost spirit, they lost being a team'. Excuses. Excuses. Excuse. Try to protect them every time.
"Bah. Come on, come on, come on. We are professional. The club pay us a lot of money. The players receive money, me receive money, you understand? Not to find excuse or not show spirit or show a sense of belonging or don't show a sense of responsibility because we are showing this.
"For me this is unacceptable because for me this is the first time in my career to see a situation like this. Until now I wasn't able to change, not to change but compare to last season the situation went to become worse."
At this point last season Conte used the uncertainty about his future to motivate his players. In essence he was telling them 'if you want me to stay then prove it'. Twelve months on and the stick he used no longer has a carrot on the end of it, instead he's beating them with it and it's unlikely to produce the reaction he wants.
In his BBC interview on Saturday, Conte added: "The fans deserve much better than this team."
Of all the players, at the time this was published, only Cristian Romero and Pedro Porro had responded on social media to the defeat.
The Argentine's post was perhaps the most telling, making it clear that he had the desire to push Spurs on with everyone working "together".
"There are many things to improve, but we will not get tired of trying, we will get up and try again," he posted. "I love the players of my team, I love them and my club, I know that we are going to move forward and the time and work of all together will tell us where we will go.
"I've been here for a short time, but we're going to be together to achieve important things, more years may pass but we'll try."
This was a match that had a few scattered positives. Porro and Ivan Perisic scored their first goals for Tottenham, Son Heung-min bagged his 50th Premier League assist and Harry Kane took his tally to a remarkable 21 goals in 27 Premier League matches despite the inconsistent team he's playing in week in, week out.
Oliver Skipp put in another all-action display with four tackles, one interception, one clearance, one blocked shot and two key passes in the Southampton half. Dejan Kulusevski was bright after being thrown on just four minutes in, providing the assist for Kane and then it was his cross that caused all kinds of problems and led to Perisic's strike.
Fraser Forster also made some more fine saves to prevent Spurs from losing the game and earned himself a recall to the England squad.
The negatives outweighed the positives though, starting with Richarlison and Ben Davies being lost to injury just four minutes and 37 minutes into the contest respectively.
Southampton lost two central defenders in Armel Bella-Kotchap and Jan Bednarek. It seems strange to say in a game in which they scored three goals, but Spurs somehow still struggled to really test Gavin Bazunu beyond that. Those three goals came from the visitors' only three shots on target.
That should still have been enough though with 1-0, 2-1 and 3-1 leads, had the team defended properly as a unit. Instead Perisic and Clement Lenglet were caught out of position for Theo Walcott to race through and square for Che Adams to score within a minute of the second half starting.
Then in the 77th minute Eric Dier for some reason only beknown to him stepped away from Walcott to take up a position on the line, leaving the former England striker completely unmarked to fire past him.
The late penalty given after Pape Matar Sarr was adjudged to have brought down Ashley Maitland-Niles in the box was as harsh as they come. The Southampton man leapt from behind with a high boot and whatever contact there was from the young Senegal international was marginal at best.
Conte and Kulusevski both slammed the award of the spot kick, which VAR decided could not be overruled as a clear and obvious error, but neither used it as an excuse. The damage was already done by Tottenham to themselves.
"Sloppy mistakes. We lost possession easily, we didn't have control of the game at 3-1 when we should have. Really poor goals," said Dier. "We shouldn't let them back into the game. They lost both their centre-backs and we should cause them a lot more problems. We only have ourselves to blame.
"There will be lots of ups and downs for everybody fighting for top four and relegation. It will definitely go down to the last couple of weeks of the season. We need to find some consistency."
Some fans may well struggle to listen to Dier calling out the lack of attacking threat when his team-mates still scored three goals that should have been enough had the defence done its job. Some supporters will see Dier as epitomising the nearly nature of Spurs in recent years and the club's inconsistency.
What comes next at Tottenham needs to be weighed up carefully. While Conte neglected to place much, if any, blame on himself, most of what he said does ring true.
The players have often escaped the blame over the years with a long line of managers thrown under the bus instead and it's difficult to argue that a club with just one league cup to its name in 23 years has any kind of winning mentality or culture from the top down.
If Conte has made his position untenable with his outburst then what will be the latest decision of a Tottenham board that has lurched from one wildly different plan to the next? Chairman Daniel Levy has appointed project managers and win-now silverware laden managers galore and none of them have been able to win anything approaching major trophies under his stewardship.
Conte, whether he meant to or not, has once again drawn everyone's attention to that fact and that's what makes Levy's next decision so important if Conte's tenure is to come to a premature end. It was always set to be Levy's decision on what comes next regardless of the mess surrounding Spurs' managing director of football Fabio Paratici.
There could be the temptation to hand Ryan Mason the reins until the end of the campaign once again after he won four of his six Premier League games as a 29-year-old coach two seasons ago.
It would give the board breathing space to look at the full array of managerial options but it's a gamble for the short-term as Levy looks for entry once again into the lucrative Champions League.
If Mason struggles than it could prematurely end the managerial aspirations of a young coach who the club have high hopes for.
Do the club give Conte one more game to see whether his words do indeed spark a reaction within the squad or do they decide he has already lost the players? The trip to another scrapping relegation-threatened side in Everton after the international break will show just how much fight Spurs have left to give for the Italian.
Luring a manager away from another club at this late stage of the season would prove near impossible, which leaves Levy with the unattached options - the main trio being Mauricio Pochettino, Thomas Tuchel and Luis Enrique.
Enrique would be another glamour appointment for the Spurs chairman but for his impressive success over two seasons at Barcelona, the 52-year-old's record outside of Spain might make some at Tottenham nervous about his appointment being another expensive gamble. The Spaniard would also require an expensive squad overhaul to suit his passing style, although that might be no bad thing.
Tuchel has the Premier League experience but can Spurs really follow the 'let's just appoint that sacked Chelsea boss' route yet again? There are some who suggest the German would take some convincing anyway and Conte's rant might only have strengthened Tuchel's concerns over the Tottenham job.
Of the free agents, that leaves Pochettino. If anything could bring together a disenchanted fanbase and a squad lacking in belief it might just be the romantic notion of the Argentine riding back into the club he loves to finally attend to that "unfinished business" he once spoke of.
Nobody knows Tottenham Hotspur better than Mauricio Pochettino, with all of its quirks, secrets, problems and strengths and he will be more experienced and knowledgeable with those much-sought trophies on his CV after a chaotic 18 months at PSG, a period which gave him a window into life inside a club that makes Spurs look like a tea party.
Yet does going back ever work in football? Mourinho, Zidane, Capello, Lippi and even Redknapp have all proved it can, but there are countless tales where managerial returns have brought far less success than in the first spell.
There's also a big question mark over whether the Spurs board is united in wanting Pochettino to return and a perhaps bigger question mark over whether the Argentine feels the time is right to come back. This is a very different Tottenham to the one he was ejected from three-and-a-half years ago, a club with a cluttered structure inside that now bears very little resemblance to what he will remember.
International breaks are often the time for managerial changes as they provide a little more time for hastily-arranged plans to be put in place.
Conte's explosive tirade has put Levy and his track record firmly back in the spotlight. There's a case to be made that removing the Italian now would only underline those final words of his press conference.
"It is time to change this situation if Tottenham want to change," he said. "If they want to continue in this way, they can change the manager, a lot of managers, but the situation cannot change. Believe me."
The ball is in Daniel Levy's court. The Spurs chairman has made big promises to the fanbase over the years about what he wants to see on the pitch to match what lies off it but he's never made it happen.
Despite the growing discontent with Conte, the travelling Tottenham faithful were still singing the Italian's name as the game begun while later on some of the same supporters were chanting for the chairman's exit.
Levy has to get his next decision right because he needs to prove to those beleaguered fans that after more than 20 years and 12 managers he can be the solution rather than simply the common denominator.
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