Chelsea overachieved to win the Premier League but the problems are mounting up for Antonio Conte, says Jamie Redknapp…
It’s a strange situation at Chelsea. They had so much success last year and won the league but you can see there’s a lot of friction there now.
It’s almost mirroring the 2015/16 season, when Jose Mourinho was in charge. Back then they were defending champions but from the opening day draw at home to Swansea you could tell something wasn’t right. Mourinho wasn’t happy with their transfer dealings, like Conte now.
The only difference is, so far, Conte has managed to hold it together better than Jose did, with Chelsea sliding down the table that season.
The truth is, Conte did a great job to win the league last year with this Chelsea squad. It wasn’t quite of Leicester City proportions but he coached that team to the title. They overachieved.
He realised he had to do it a different way after that defeat by Arsenal which sparked the formation change, and that’s what I admired so much about it. You almost went to the games to watch him as much as the team at times, because he was so influential in how they played.But there’s no doubt, when you go to watch Chelsea now, he’s much more passive than he was last year. He’s not given up but he’s not on it like he was last season.
There has been talk about him getting the sack and returning to the Italy job recently, but I hope he sticks with it at Chelsea because he deserves a bit of respect for what he’s done there.
However, if they have many more results like that heavy defeat by Bournemouth, you wouldn’t bet against the board making a change. You can imagine Guus Hiddink getting his suit out of the wardrobe!
But, really, who would you get? Who is better than Conte who’s available? These top managers are hard to find.
