Not having a manager solely focusing on Chelsea was hard to take but seeing Italy’s performances at the Euros and seeing that their performances were majorly down to Conte and his tactics is something I love to see.
At Chelsea we are not going to be able to simply outscore teams like Barcelona and Conte is much more about the team than the individual and the comparisons to how Louis Van Gaal performed on the international level are way off as his philosophy is nothing like Antonio Conte’s.
Pep Guardiola and Manchester City have hit the ground running with the signing of Ilkay Gundogan. But Chelsea are showing signs of life after picking up Batshuayi.
Arsenal have had the same kind of start securing Granit Xhaka. On the other hand, Chelsea have been linked with half the world (as usual) and even if we don’t buy Lukaku because he’s too expensive or Stones for the same reason, we would hope to find quality for a lesser price, promote a few youth players or bring back the players on loan.
What we all loved about 2 seasons ago was how quickly we bought Fabregas and Costa before any publicity or bidding war started leaving us with the core group of our players ready early during preseason giving them more time to integrate and understand each other.
In transfers managers can call players personally and persuade them to come to their club, something Jose was brilliant at but with Conte having spent the summer at the Euros he has said all along his only focus was on Italy.
I’m pretty sure he has been in contact with the board and set up a wish list but you can’t help to think if our lack of activity has been because Conte is unable to personally persuade players to play for him.
If the actual process of buying new players is down to Michael Emenalo and Marina Granovskaia then they should be the ones who hear our praise during successful transfer windows and our displeasure during unsuccessful ones.
Conte is certainly the right man for the job and having a preview of Conte’s intensity and tactical prowess at the Euros is something that excited us all.
So was the fact that Conte was at Euro 2016 slowed us down? I don’t think so, and of course he could speed up the process but the main reason is that at a club like Chelsea it is not 100% up to the manager to bring in players, it’s their job to identify them, which I believe he has done and we’re as prepared as any team right now to take on the new season.
