Antonio Conte’s recent statement that he longs for Italy and that he doesn’t plan to stay abroad for a long time started a great deal of speculation about his future with the Blues, despite the fact that he recently extended his deal with Chelsea until 2019, and revealing his plans to move his family to England. The fact of the matter is that a lot of players are not satisfied with their manager and the Godfather himself is not very satisfied with his squad and the activities of Chelsea’s management during the transfer window.
Former Juventus manager did have a successful first season at Stamford Bridge, since he managed to revive his squad and win the title. However, there were lots of controversies regarding his relationship with certain players, such as Branislav Ivanovic, Diego Costa, and the legendary captain John Terry. All three of them left the club, with Ivanovic moving to Zenit, Terry going to Aston Villa, and Costa securing a return to Atletico Madrid, after he received an SMS from his manager, who told him that he would no longer be a member of the first team squad.
The problems continued during the recently closed transfer window, when, out of the blue, Chelsea sold Nemanja Matic, one of their best players in the season 2016/2017, to Manchester United. Conte was angry, to say the least, but, on the other hand, he needed to make room for Monaco’s Bakayoko, as it was clear that these two players could not play at the same time. Matic stated that he was extremely happy to work again with Jose, and we can only suppose that Nemanja was another player who didn’t have such a good relationship with Conte. The list of players can go on, but we decided to stop here, because there are more issues needed to be covered in order to support our theory.
Some former football stars stated that Conte had until Christmas to save his job and that Chelsea would start 2018 with a brand new boss. Chelsea’s results are not that good this season, the team is three points behind the Manchester duo. Conte himself stated that it will be very difficult to defend the title, since both United and City created strong teams this summer, while his squad could use a bit of improvement.
We are still waiting to see the reaction of Roman Abramovich, who is not known as a very patient man when it comes to his managers, since he changed a dozen of them during his reign. Only Mourinho managed to “survive” longer than two years at helm, and time will tell will the Godfather succeed in staying at the club for so long. Inter Milan tried to sign him this summer, but Conte decided to stay and try to repeat the success from the previous season. It is clear that Inter’s offer will remain open, and it is possible that the former Italy manager accepts the deal if the situation in Chelsea gets worse. During his managerial career, Conte only stayed in Juventus longer than one year, if we disregard his two-year stay in the Italy national team.
So, if we look back in history, the statement that Antonio Conte will leave soon represents a realistic possibility. Bookmakers have already started to offer odds regarding his survival at the helm of Chelsea in the current season, and you can find out more about this particular topic at some of the leading UK betting sites.
