Reports of Manager Antonio Conte’s demise from Chelsea have been greatly exaggerated before. A few outlets in the Italian media have consistently put forth the narratives that Conte is: fighting with Stamford Bridge higher-ups, looking to return to Italy, could be sacked in the near future.
While the legitimacy of those reports has been questioned, Bild, arguably the paper of record in Germany, has a sterling reputation. Today, they have a scoop claiming that former Borussia Dortmund Manager Thomas Tuchel is being considered as Conte’s replacement.
Bild writes that Chelsea Owner Roman Abramovich and his confidante, Club Director Marina Granovskaia are running out of patience with Conte, adding that: “Granovskaia, who is considered to be the most powerful woman in world football, has apparently already been informed about Tuchel in detail and has decided on him as a new Chelsea coach.”
In May, Tuchel won his first trophy with Dortmund, as they beat Eintracht Frankfurt 2–1 in the 2017 DFB-Pokal Final. However, he left the club three days later. He’s a candidate who’s both currently available and qualified enough to succeed in the role, but sacking Conte seems a bit trigger happy right now.
Sure, Abramovich has a reputation for being very quick to give a manager the hook, but Conte is only in his second season, and the club just restructured and reconfigured his contract just a few weeks ago.
Conte has both accomplished a lot, and done much to get himself in trouble.
On one hand, he took a tenth place team that was completely broken from a chemistry standpoint and led them to a Premier League title in his first season. He did so in extremely convincing fashion, achieving a record 30 wins in 38 matches.
On the other hand, his extremely tough love style turns some people off, he definitely made missteps that largely contributed to the Diego Costa situation blowing up into chaos and he got the Blues off to a rough start this season.
Conte has also openly complained about the club’s failures in the transfer market, which have left him, he says, with a squad that’s too small to compete in both continental and domestic competition.
It’s seems a bit hasty to replace him with Thomas Tuchel right now, but watch this space, as it could happen at some point this season.
Conte is the bookies’ favorite to be the first Premier League manager sacked this season for a reason.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now and Minute Media. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and Chicago Now.
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