Chelsea Manager Antonio Conte essentially admitted that the decision to sell midfielder Nemanja Matic to Manchester United was out of his hands. Conte made it a clear what “a great loss” it is for his side to see Matic go to a league rival, and just how “very important” the Serbian was to his team.
“Matic knows very well what I think about him — the importance for me about this player, who is a really good player, a top player, very important for our team,” Conte said. “But sometimes you must accept this crazy transfer market, and sometimes you must accept different decisions. But he is a great loss for us.”
Matic wanted a place where he could get first team football and United provided that, along with a £40 million transfer fee. While Conte wanted him to stay, the story of owner Roman Abramovich stepping in and sanctioning the move himself, like he did with Petr Cech and Arsenal, is the best example of why this move happened, even though the manager had other plans.
Antonio Conte told the Evening Standard that he had hoped to utilize Nemanja Matic in a mentorship role for the newly acquired Tiemoue Bakayoko.
“Bakayoko is a good signing for us,” the Italian said. “He is very young. My idea was to give Bakayoko the right time to adapt in this league behind Matic. But now after the sale of Matic, we need to try to accelerate this process for Bakayoko after his injury.”
Conte can pin this transaction’s occurrence despite his wishes on an out of whack transfer market, and to some extent that may be true, but it’s also worth nothing that 1.) he simply had rank pulled on him and 2.) Nemanja Matic must have really wanted the move himself.
Matic reunited with his former manager Jose Mourinho, and when the deal was announced the United manager thanked him, thus essentially verifying that Matic must have pushed to get his transfer over the line.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV.
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