Antonio Conte Reportedly At War With Chelsea After Rejecting Pre-season Plans

Posted by Odinaka on Thu 05th Jul, 2018 - tori.ng

Chelsea's Italian manager, Antonio Conte has refused to accept the Blues pre-season programmes, despite being linked with a move out of Stamford Bridge before the commencement of the new campaign.

Conte guided Chelsea to the FA Cup in 2017/18 but missed out on a top-four finish in the Premier League

Antonio Conte is already at war with Chelsea over pre-season plans, despite being expected to leave the club before the start of the season.

According to The Times, a member of Chelsea’s technical staff emailed non-World Cup players to report back to training this weekend but Conte responded saying they can relax until Monday.

Despite an FA Cup final win last season, the campaign was seen as a huge disappointment after league and Champions League failings.

And the ruthless Stamford Bridge board was expected to axe the former Italy boss, after he was publicly critical of their transfer dealings.

It is an embarrassingly open secret that compatriot Maurizio Sarri has been lined up to replace Conte but the club is yet to pay their current manager off and he is certainly not about to walk away.

The no-nonsense email is not the first time Conte has typed himself into trouble after his brutal 2017 text to Diego Costa sparked his painful and protracted exit.

This time last summer, as the club was preparing to defend its Premier League crown, Costa asked four extra days off, only for his boss to replay: “Hi Diego, thank you, but you at not in my plans.”

The 48-year-old is in a strong position as he signed a new two-year contract last summer and has a huge backroom staff, also on hefty deals.

To pay off Conte and his team would cost the newly cost-effective club around £10m as the boss is on £9m-a-season. And his 9 assistant coaches and additional colleagues would all be entitled to severance packages.

Stamford Bridge chiefs have already held talks with former Napoli coach Sarri.

Napoli appointed ex-Blues boss, Carlo Ancelotti as their new manager but they will collect £4.5m from Chelsea in compensation as Sarri remains under contract.

Negotiations are also progressing with Conte over his long-awaited exit.

It means Sarri, 59, will start work on shaping his squad as he attempts to get the club back into the Champions League.