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The 5th of February 2018 was another bad day for Antonio Conte and his boys as they slumped to a 4-1 defeat to Watford at Vicarage Road. Since regaining the league title in the previous season, life at Stamford Bridge has not been rosy for the Italian. His Chelsea side has already tasted 6(six) league defeats so far this campaign as compared to the 5(five) defeats they suffered for the entirety of last season when the emerged Premier League Champions. Over the past few weeks, Chelsea have lost a League cup semi-final, drawn their first five games of 2018 and lost their two most recent games by a three-goal margin.
Having experienced such a tumultuous season so far, the Chelsea fans continues to ask what could be responsible for the struggles of the Premier League Champions this term.
However, this piece attempts to identify the factors behind their struggles so far.
First, the whole problem started immediately after the end of last season when Conte told Spanish Striker Diego Costa that his services were no longer needed at Stamford Bridge via a text message. Costa publicly revealed that he was sent a text message by Conte while he was holidaying in Brazil. This caused a stand off between the player and club before he was finally sold off to Spanish side, Atletico de Madrid.
I strongly think ending a player's professional career at club via a text message was so very unprofessional. Also considering the fact that Diego Costa was an integral part of their title winning team where he banged in 20goals and was the club's highest goalscorer.
Conte then decided to replace Costa with another Spanish Striker, Alvaro Morata. There certainly is no doubting Morata's quality but its crystal clear that Morata lacks the physicality and strength that Costa has which he used to intimidate defenders in the box during his time in the Premier League. More so, Morata prior to his Chelsea move has never in his career been a main striker at the club he played for. In his time at both Juventus and Real Madrid, he functioned brilliantly as a backup striker to Carlos Tevez and Karim Benzema respectively. There were also doubt about his ability to adapt to the physicality of the Premier League and cope with the busy festive schedule which is found in no other top flight league in Europe. These doubts were actually confirmed after it was claimed he suffered fatigue even before the first half of the current campaign came to an end. After a bright start to the season, Morata has struggled in front of goal. In essence, Conte's inability to replace Costa with a prolific striker has cost his team as Chelsea has also scored 9(nine) fewer goals than they did at the same stage last season.
Another factor that could have contributed to Chelsea woes would be the distraction from Europe. It is worthy of note that last season when the emerged winners of the League, they were in no European competition which definitely gave them the upper hand over other title contenders like Manchester City, Manchester United, Tottenham and Arsenal.
Conte also lacks a big squad which can compete favorably for European and domestic honours. One can also conclude that he had a terrible transfer market as he couldn't get most of his first choice target with the likes of Alex Sandro and Fernando Llorente coming to mind. Conte though on numerous occasions has publicly declared that he has little say over the players brought into the club as compared to the free hand and unlimited fund given to his Manchester City counterpart, Pep Guardiola.
Also during the summer he brought in a certain Tiemoune Bakayoko who was supposed to replace the Manchester United bound Nemanja Matic who was also an integral part of their title winning team. So far, things haven't gone according to plan as Bakayoko who was also part of the Monaco team which emerged surprise Champions during the 2016/17 Ligue 1 season, has been a shadow of himself and has so far had a campaign he will want to forget in a hurry. His red card in his last game against Watford just further summed up what a bad debut season he's had.
Further eyebrows were raised when he secured the signatures of the likes of Danny Drinkwater and Ross Barkley from Leicester City and Everton respectively. These are players who have spent more time on the treatment table than the football pitch this season. He most recently was also subject to more intense criticism and rightly so, for sanctioning the loan deal of the Belgian striker Michy Batshuayi to German club Borussia Dortmund and replacing him with ex Arsenal striker Olivier Giroud.
In summary, Conte's bad performance in the transfer market has also played a big part in his side's struggles this term.
Conte's inability to also review or possibly change his tactical approach is part of his problem too. Last season his team flourished in the 3-5-2 formation but this term it seems most teams have effectively kept them in check. So his inability to be tactical flexible too has been detrimental to his season.
It doesn't get any easier for Conte either as his Chelsea side have the likes of Barcelona to tackle in the Uefa Champions League, back to back away against Manchester United and table toppers, Manchester City in the Premier League.
Chelsea owner, Russian billionaire, Roman Abramovic is well known for running out of patience with his managers no matter how successful they might have been in the past. The likes of Andre-Villa Boas, Carlo Ancelotti, Roberto Di Matteo and most recently the self acclaimed "Special one", Jose Mourinho comes to mind. In fact over the past 11years, Chelsea has had 10(ten) different managers.
So how long then will Mr Abramovich put up with Antonio Conte?
Or could it be another situation where the services Guus Hiddink could be re employed to rescue their top four ambition which is in real threat?
As Chelsea welcome West Bromwich Albion to Stamford Bridge on Monday, its noteworthy to know that former Chelsea managers, Andre-Villa Boas and Roberto Di- Matteo were sacked after losing to West Bromwich Albion, will Mr Antonio Conte be next??
Only time will tell.