Chelsea plan to spend over £125 million on players that Antonio Conte doesn’t want
Chelsea and Antonio Conte are at odds
Most managers would be overjoyed at the news their owners are preparing to back them with a summer transfer budget of well over £100 million. Only Antonio Conte would find a way to turn that into a negative at Chelsea.
Reports from England claim the Blues are preparing to sign quite a few big name stars over the next several weeks. Specifically Tiemoue Bakayoko, Romelu Lukaku, Alex Sandro and Willy Caballero are all ticketed to arrive at Stamford Bridge within the next several days. Those deals aren’t all completely done, but it would be a significant surprise if any of the quartet end up playing anywhere else next season.
With the exception of Caballero, each of those transactions will cost Chelsea quite a bit of transfer cash. Bakayoko will arrive from Monaco for a fee of at least £30 million. The Old Lady will only let Sandro leave for a rumoured fee of just over £60 million. Lukaku will be the most expensive purchase of the club’s summer once an agreement is reached with Everton. Most believe it will cost Chelsea at least £80 million to buy their striker of the future.
The only trouble with those deals is that only Bakayoko has Conte’s blessing. That means that Chelsea will spend well over £100 million on purchases that only Roman Abramovich has approved. You can be sure that won’t help mend the relationship between the Blues’ owner and their title-winning manager.
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The tension between the two men is believed to be the reason Conte hasn’t signed a lucrative new deal with the club. Currently, the Blues have a standing offer that would make their manager the highest paid boss in the Premier League. The only reason he hasn’t signed the new deal is that he wants more control over the club’s transfer dealings.
Unfortunately for Conte, Abramovich isn’t the type of owner that will give up that sort of control. The Russian billionaire is happy to take the opinions of others in account, but the final say will always rest with him. In fairness to Abramovich, it’s worked well for him in the past. He’s managed to win multiple Premier League titles with different managers. From his perspective, there’s no reason to break a system that isn’t broken.
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In the end, everyone expects Conte and Abramovich to find common ground before the start of next season. A compromise would certainly be in the club’s best interest. The battle between the two massive egos may be the biggest threat to Chelsea’s reign on top of the Premier League.