Chelsea and Conte: What’s gone wrong
Chelsea is currently experiencing a rough patch now. Since the turn of the calendar year, Chelsea has only won 5 out of their 14 games and are 5 points off 4th place Spurs. Even though Conte won the league last season, he’s felt a lot of doubts this season about his future at the club, often falling out with the board in terms of buying players, and the players when it comes to the style of play.
Board
It’s been well documented since the beginning of the season that Antonio Conte opposed against many of the decisions the Chelsea board made, including the sale of Nemanja Matic to rivals Manchester United. Furthermore, at the beginning of February, he asked the board to give a public vote of confidence in the hope of further solidifying his job at the club, however, the board did not comply. He hasn’t been seeing eye to eye with the board and reportedly is in continuous conflict with Roman Abramovich’s close colleague, Marina Granovskaia. When interviewed by the Daily Mirror, Chelsea legend Gianfranco Zola stated that “If Chelsea loses Antonio, they are losing a very good coach. But if Antonio loses Chelsea, he is a losing a very special club. I’m saying it to Antonio and I am saying it to the club as well. So if the relationship can be fixed, it will be good for both of them.” Gianfranco Zola has recently acted as a mediator between the board and Antonio Conte, however, it still seems at the moment is Conte is still frustrated with the board. During the press conference before their match against Manchester City, Conte took another sly dig at the board, saying that, “There is a great feeling between the manager and the club and you can work the way you want to improve your team. Also because City has the possibility to spend a lot of money. What happens when you link a good manager with a lot of money. This is the result” The board is undoubtedly become more and more impatient with Conte as Chelsea are currently out of the top 4 and continues to be slated by Conte in public. The only way this issue can be solved from the perspective of the board is to let Conte go at the end of the season, identify a replacement, experience short-term success, before sacking that manager, and continuously repeat this cycle.
Tactics
Following Chelsea’s 1–0 defeat to league leaders Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium, Conte drew a lot of criticism for his defensive tactics, including Sky pundit Jamie Redknapp calling the performance, a “crime against football.” While that sounds very harsh, it’s very understandable from where Redknapp was coming from. Chelsea played Hazard as a false 9 and played long balls to him as though he’s a target man, hoping to hold down the ball, however, Hazard is not that type of player. Once Chelsea got the ball, they weren’t sure what to do with the ball and struggled to create many chances. But, the criticism from the performance doesn’t come from their game plan but was because once they were 1–0 down, they didn’t fight for an equalizer and continued their game plan. Moreover, this was a similar situation against Manchester United the previous week. During the second half of the match, Conte took off Hazard in the hope of securing a draw, however, because of their lack of urgency to attack and regain the lead, Manchester United capitalized and made it 2–1, and it was too late for Chelsea to level the game. Even the players such as Eden Hazard have criticised Conte’s tactics on and off the pitch, not running after the long balls played towards him in the game, and stating that if the game continued for three more hours, he wouldn’t have received the ball once.
Man management
Similar to adversary Jose Mourinho, Conte only has one way to manage his players, however, most of the time, this does not seem to work out. When leveled with Manchester United at half-time at Old Trafford, Conte failed to get a reaction out of his players in the second half and push for a second, instead what he was a lackluster second-half performance that lacked any real punch like the first half. Conte has been unable to motivate his players the same way he did last season because he’s treated some players poorly and once he puts them out on the pitch, they’re short on confidence. For example, Alvaro Morata. When Morata was facing a dip in form, Conte initially had put faith and gave him time to rediscover his form, however, eventually, Conte lost patience and soon went out to buy Olivier Giroud. Furthermore, when Chelsea is chasing the game against Manchester City and are playing long balls in the box, Conte doesn’t bring on Alvaro Morata, until the 89th minute, which is awfully late to put on a player that can help you nick a draw. Instead of putting further faith into Morata when his confidence is low, Conte further damages it but not giving him much game time or any real chances to rediscover his form. Another example is David Luiz. During Chelsea’s Premier League success last year, David Luiz was critical, keeping the defense solid alongside Azpilicueta and Cahill. But, at the beginning of the season, Conte completely dropped David Luiz and stopped including him on the benches, completely alienating him from the matchday squads. Conte isn’t really the best manager out there at the moment that can keep a high morale in the team and confidence levels high in the players. From when he was shouting at his players when they were winning 4–0 last season, to now where he remains silent on the touchline, Conte seems a stark contrast from the energetic, tactical man that we came to know of last season.
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