With the way things are at Stamford Bridge, you will have to be the greatest optimist to believe Antonio Conte will remain manager of the Blues if they don’t win the Premiership this season. The relationship that appeared like love at first sight is slowly but steadily turning into passion blinded infatuation.
The fiery Italian is gradually realising that his ambitions are different from the club’s. While he wants established and mature players to steady the ship, the club management want young and talented players who will lead them to the next generation. That’s why while Conte would prefer to buy 33-year-old Giorgio Chiellini, the club decided to buy 24-year-old RomanAntonio Rudiger. They preferred Tiemoue Bakayoko (23) to Nemanja Matic (29). To be fair, Conte started it. When Chelsea decided they wanted to replace Diego Costa (28) with Romelu Lukaku and eventually, Alvaro Morata, both 24, Conte did not complain. It was he indeed who sent the text to Costa informing him that his services were no longer needed.
You could sense the parting of ways coming between manager and club. For one, Chelsea sugar daddy, Roman Abramovic is not interested in long-term relationships with his managers. He is more into wham bam, thanks manager. No manager has spent four full seasons at Chelsea ever since the Red Roman took over. He can employ you more than once, like he did Jose Mourinho and Guus Hiddink, but once he gets bored with you, you get the sack. Even winning the Champions League may not be enough to save your job, as Roberto di Matteo found out.
On the other hand, it appears Conte is not happy with life at the West London club. He thought he would be in total control of the transfer market at Chelsea, but if he had called Mourinho, instead of coming all out to antagonise and ridicule the Portuguese, he would have found out the truth, pronto.
When Conte told the Italian media over the weekend he missed home and would be back soon, observers believe his departure will be as early as end of this season. He feels he has been short-changed in the last transfer window and other clubs were allowed to snatch his targets from under his nose.
He has been complaining bitterly about this. Another issue he has been moaning about is the fact that he has to play the premiership just days after he had played in the Champions League. That was his excuse for losing at home to Manchester City over the weekend. He conveniently forgot that Man City also played in the Champions League. He conveniently forgot that all last season when he was scampering to the title, most of his rivals had to deal with coping with juggling European and the premiership matches. One thing is clear, when a manager starts to make excuses about almost everything, that is a sign that he has lost the plot and he is getting his excuses in early for when he is sacked or he decides he has had enough and resigns.
Whichever happens, just note that if Chelsea don’t win the league, it is very very likely that they will have a new manager next season.
Discussion about this post