Musical chairs by the best managers may prove costly

CHELSEA are hoping a summer merry-go-round of managers will avoid them having to pay a huge bill to replace Antonio Conte.

The Italian manager is expected to leave at the end of the season, and the club have an A-list and B-list of possible replacements.

Many of the top targets, such as Mauricio Pochettino, Maurizio Sarri, Max Allegri and Leonardo Jardim would be expensive to prise away from their clubs, and even freeagent Luis Enrique wants a salary of around £15-million (R258-million) a year.

Chelsea face a potential bill of £9million (R155-million) to sack Conte if he does not walk straight into another job.

Napoli’s Sarri would cost around £7-million (R120-million) to hire, while Allegri is contracted to Juventus until 2020. Pochettino has one year more on his Tottenham Hotspur contract and his chairman, Daniel Levy, wants him to sign a lucrative new deal.

One possible post for Conte appears to have gone, with Paris StGermain poised to replace Unai Emery with Thomas Tuchel, but should Chelsea go for either Sarri or Allegri, then there is every chance that Conte would feature high on the lists of both Napoli and Juve as they looked for a replacement.

Similarly, if they managed to tempt Enrique then Arsenal would have to look elsewhere and possibly open up another potential vacancy for Conte.

It is believed that Chelsea’s B-list features fewer big names and would entail the club taking a different direction. —