Antonio Conte stepped up his war of words with Chelsea’s board when he criticised the club’s flawed transfer policy that has seen the reigning Premier League champions fall way behind Manchester City.
Chelsea are clinging on to fourth place as they travel to Watford on Monday, already 19 points behind City, having finished 15 points ahead of them last season.
And Conte has said that the biggest difference between the two mega-rich clubs was in their transfer activity, not just in the recent window but last summer, too.
While Pep Guardiola kept his best players and spent over £200m on a handful of top quality additions such as Bernard Silva, Ederson and Kyle Walker, Chelsea lost three top players – Diego Costa, John Terry and Nemanja Matic – and failed to replace them with world-class talent.
Although the Blues also spent over £200m, it was spread across seven signings and it can be argued that only Alvaro Morata is in the top bracket, and even he has struggled in recent weeks.
Danny Drinkwater, Tiemoue Bakayoko, Antonio Rudiger, Davide Zappacosta and the rest have failed to impress and the January window has told the same story, with the arrivals of Ross Barkley, Olivier Giroud and Emerson Palmeri failing to inspire Chelsea’s fans – or their manager.
Conte has repeatedly distanced himself from the club’s transfer policy, which have been overseen since the departure of Michael Emenalo last year by Marina Granovskaia, Roman Abramovich’s former personal assistant and now a director of Chelsea.
And on Friday Conte openly criticised the situation when asked what Chelsea need to do in the long term, in order to catch up with City and the other clubs ahead of them in the table.
‘We must be realistic and understand what our level is, struggling to fight for a Champions League place,’ he said. ‘We must be strong to accept this type of situation. Then, in the future, if there is the possibility, you have to try to buy only two or three players – not eight players. Don’t forget, this summer we brought in eight players and spent a lot less than other teams who bought only two or three.’
And he still believes Chelsea are short of the solid foundation needed to compete with City. ‘We have to build something important. To do this, you must have 15 or 16 players. In the summer we changed eight players. That means you don’t have a basis, a great foundation.
‘We lost strong, experienced players in the last few years, so we must have patience to understand that, now, we have to appreciate the moment, be realistic, create a basis and then build something important to face big challenges with the other teams.’
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