Imagine, for a moment, being sacked by the media before your employer has formally relieved you of your position? Imagine knowing for weeks that the person most likely to take your job hasn’t officially left theirs, even though someone has been appointed to replace him? Imagine maintaining, amid all the speculation, that you plan to see out your contract? Imagine turning up for work on a Monday knowing the it was only a matter of when, not if, that your successor would be announced? Imagine, then, being a dead man walking.
"People have said I am a dead man walking but I am not - I am still moving. It is difficult to kill me" - Claudio Ranieri
It was Claudio Ranieri who rose, stoicly, above the rumouring when still Chelsea manager to respond to media claims that he was a “dead man walking”, following Roman Abramovich’s acquisition of Chelsea. The Italian - a dignified figure then and still a much loved figure to this day - was being written out of a job by the sports press who hypothesised that the so-called “Tinkerman” (on account of his sometimes eccentric susbtitutions) would not be the manager Abramovich would want to implement his vision of turning Chelsea into the AC Milan of West London. Enter José Mourinho.
As long drawn out public executions go, Antonio Conte has been on Death Row for the last 12 months. Even as he was celebrating winning the Premier League - perhaps unexpectedly - in his first season in charge at Chelsea, the Italian was sowing the seeds of the departure announced this morning by agitating for more investment in players, or investment in better players. This became the narrative of an otherwise disappointing second season for Conte at Chelsea. Given Roman Abramovich's history of trigger-happy knee-jerk dismissals, Conte was playing with fire. That it's taken such a protracted time for him to go is, actually, baffling. Chelsea managers have gone far sooner and for less.
On Monday this week Conte took charge of Chelsea's first official pre-season training session at the club's Cobham base. It was the first time he'd been seen in public with Chelsea since the FA Cup Final at Wembley in May, when he paraded with his squad and the trophy. His future remained ambiguous: he maintained he was going nowhere, that he had a contract and he would fulfil it. The club said nothing, but the rumours continued that it was actively seeking a replacement, with Napoli's Maurizio Sarri persisting as the lead candidate. Today, Conte's status, at least, has been finally clarified: "Chelsea Football Club and Antonio Conte have parted company," was the headline on the club's website, following the somewhat basic "During Antonio’s time at the club, we won our sixth league title and eighth FA Cup. In the title winning season, the club set a then-record 30 wins in a 38-game Premier League season, as well as a club-record 13 consecutive league victories. We wish Antonio every success in his future career." 61 words, and none of them including the customary "we thank XXXX for his contribution to the club's success over the last XXXX years" or "by mutual agreement". It's a statement that no doubt, had been crafted by a lawyer. Just the right side of acknowledgement, just the right side of liability.
The period since the FA Cup Final has been, even by Chelsea's modern standard of dysfunction, chaotic. According to various reports, Conte's departure was protracted while lawyers haggled over the terms of his payoff, rumoured to be worth up to £9 million, as well as payoffs for his entire coaching staff, which includes his brother Daniele. Whether Conte had accepted his fate, or not, remains to be seen, and the sight of him on Monday taking training came across as either an act of accommodation or resilience on a scale not seen since Monty Python's Black Knight declared "it's just a flesh wound", as blood spouted from a socket vacated by his severed arm.
Sources in Italy claim that Conte has been "disgusted" by his treatment, but as likeable for fans as he was, he should not be surprised. On top of the precedent set by eight previous managerial sackings, often with considerably shorter lead times, Conte needs to reflect on the way he went about things: effectively firing a sellable asset like Diego Costa by text message wouldn't have gone down well; then there was the constant niggling about players, plus an apparent deterioration in his relationships with key figures on the playing staff like Eden Hazard, Willian, David Luiz and Thibaut Courtois; and then a season - a title-defending season - in which consistency and indifference became the norm, rather than the bright, exciting excellence of the previous term. If the griping about players wasn't enough, a post-Christmas run of three consecutive 0-0 games and seemingly routine defeats to Manchesters United and City raised questions. The 4-1 reverse to Watford only raised more. A league record of 21 wins, seven draws and ten defeats, with a fifth place finish, may not be a disaster, but in contemporary Chelsea terms, not enough. The 3-0 away defeat to Newcastle on the final day of the season probably sealed Conte's fate - even with the Cup Final win to come - as it simply summed up a season of seeming indifference. That Chelsea would fall outside Champions League places - still the measure of Abramovich's expectation - added one more nail to the Conte coffin as Chelsea manager.
Just as well: the club's website yesterday trilled that there's just four weeks to go before the start of the season. Never has there been such an alarming lack of preparedness for a new season. The club might, apparently, seem calm about it, but its fans are restless. As Spain found a few weeks ago, sacking a manager just before a major competition can have disastrous results. I hope Chelsea - lacking a Director of Football since Michael Emenalo left for Monaco, with an owner seemingly barred from the UK and calling a halt on the development of Stamford Bridge - are prepared for the consequences.
If there is one good thing about finally solving the manager issue, it's that the club can start making summer signings. The suggestion is that since discussions began with Napoli over Sarri's release, the manager-in-waiting has been feeding instructions or at least requests on who he'd like Marina Granovskaia, the club's de facto chief executive, to sign. More hangs on this than just a sign of activity: Eden Hazard's stock has risen in Real Madrid's eyes since Ronaldo hopped off to Juve, and with the Belgian rattling his sabre over Chelsea's lack of signings so far in the window, Sarri's first task will not be bed in new players but to keep those like Hazard from fleeing. Conte's man management left a lot to be desired, and stories have even surfaced this week if him carrying an intimidating air about him around the club. Sarri will have to work hard and work fast to galvanise the squad, parlay his vision and get them working to it in time for the Community Shield face-off with Manchester City on August 5, and a week later, the opening game of the Premier League season, a tricky away tie to Huddersfield. It all feels just a little too much, a little too late.
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