Antonio Conte: Ashley Young reveals Italian's 'weird and wonderful' training methods and why players fell asleep in meetings - 'It was a disaster'

Former England defender Young played under Conte at Inter for half a season after joining from Manchester United in January 2020.

Inter won the Serie A title that season to add to Conte’s impressive CV, which also includes league titles with Chelsea, Juventus and Napoli.

But Conte, who is known to be a hard taskmaster, has rarely lasted long in his managerial roles and Young has explained some of the reasons why that might be.

”A lot of people have got stories about Antonio Conte and his weird and wonderful training sessions,” Young told the High Performance Podcast.

”There were times we would go in at 9am, have breakfast, go out to train at 11am and we’d say to one of the coaches, ‘Is he ready to go?’ And he wouldn’t be ready, so one of the team managers would go in and he’d come back out and say, ‘Right, the manager needs you to have lunch at 12 and then rest, and we will train at 2pm’. The players are looking around at each other thinking, 'We have been in since 9am'.

"But it’s one of those where he wanted to test people to see if anyone was going to knock on his door and respond to him. A lot of older players did say things in the end, and they were the ones who got kicked out.

”He was a person who wanted to test you mentally. He’s had this blueprint the whole time and he’s never changed. If you are winning you can’t question him, but there’s a reason why he doesn’t last longer than a year or two years at places.

”The turning point is where players start seeing this is too much. Players start breaking down and there are so many injuries, and some of his staff are even not on board with what he is doing.

”Players will talk, come together, some have more status than others and at different clubs they will go above the manager to the board to say ‘it’s too much now’.”

Conte left Inter along with Young in the summer of 2021 after delivering the club’s first league title in 11 years.

He then had a fractious 16-month spell with Tottenham Hotspur before taking over Napoli, where he again lasted just two years but won the Serie A title.

Reflecting on his time with Conte at Inter, Young said: ”I remember being in meetings and if we'd lost a game, we'd go back through the whole game. Every couple of minutes he'd stop the video and ask, 'Why did you do this? Why did you do that?'

”We were in the meeting room for three-and-a-half hours. As players, our concentration span is probably about 10 minutes. He was losing players, there were players actually falling asleep during the meetings. It was a disaster.

”If you have that for so many years, it’s not good. You have so many injuries. 

”Us as players, we come and do our hours, the staff will come in hours before us and stay hours after us. They are not seeing their families - everyone has children - it is a hard thing to do and it’s hard work. That is the reason why he won’t last longer than a couple of years.”

Young retired from football following the conclusion of the 2025/26 season.

He won the Premier League, FA Cup, and UEFA Europa League at Manchester United, and also played 39 times for England.

---

Add TNT Sports as a preferred source here to enjoy more content like this.

Download the TNT Sports app on iPhone and Android.

Stream the Premier League, Men’s and Women’s FA Cup, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, UEFA Conference League and more on TNT Sports and HBO Max.