Time to end long goodbye, Conte
BLUES BOSS MUST ADMIT HE"S GOING
THE time has come for Antonio Conte to come clean about his future.
Sunday is a crunch day for Chelsea. If they lose at home to Tottenham, they can wave goodbye to their chances of a Champions League place.
They will be eight points behind the north Londoners with just seven games to go and will miss out on playing in Europe’s top club competition for the second time in three years.
Chelsea seem to have learned nothing from the poor season Arsenal had a year ago, as doubts spread about whether boss Arsene Wenger would stay.
It did the club no good at all in the league as they struggled to finish fifth, 18 points off Conte’s victorious Chelsea.
For months now – almost, in fact, from the start of the season – Conte has cut an unhappy figure, disillusioned at the transfer policy.
At times, he has been so down he has looked close to being depressed.
Starsport revealed first how former Barcelona boss Luis Enrique was being lined up to replace him this summer in tandem with former player Juliano Belletti as director of football.
Former Borussia Dortmund boss Thomas Tuchel has also been linked with the job. Owner Roman Abramovich would have had either one of them in and axed Conte if they had been prepared to come mid-season, which they weren’t.
Out-of-work former Hull and Watford boss Marco Silva was even considered as a caretaker, but it was eventually decided the move could backfire.
Let’s face it, employing a manager who the Hornets did not think was good enough would hardly reflect well on a club who claim to be among Europe’s elite.
Drifting
So here’s an idea – why doesn’t Conte come out with it and reveal he is off at the end of the season? Players like certainty in their lives and Chelsea right now have absolutely none. The club are drifting along and surely Conte revealing all would earn fresh respect from his stars and maybe they might raise their game for him. It would certainly earn respect from this particular journalist. And surely you could bank on the squad – no matter what they feel about the 48-year-old – putting in a rousing farewell performance for him if Chelsea reach the FA Cup final. They face Southampton in the semi-finals on April 22. It would be so refreshing to hear a manager speak the truth about what will happen next in his career. And you can imagine home fans sending him off with some passionate support as his days wind down.