Chelsea boss Antonio Conte is under immense pressure after a report has unearthed that as many as three Chelsea superstars have turned on the Italian since the morale at the club is at an all-time low.
A report from the Daily Star has quoted that since the Italian has failed to deliver positive results lately, his future has been put under immense scrutiny. Conte is not just under the pressure from the board, but the players are turning against him and his tactics as well. Since the turn of the year, the Blues have only managed two Premier League wins out of eight and have lost a whopping four.
All this saw the Blues getting a big knock on their top-four hopes and as things stand right now, they currently sit fifth on the log, five points behind the fourth-placed Tottenham Hotspur. The board has somehow been backing the Italian thus far but if the results do not improve, it could well be Conte’s final season in charge at the Bridge.
To add to it, a source close to the club has told Daily Star that Conte has exiled himself from everyone right now and is only in communication with his Italian-speaking staff.
“Conte these days only speaks to the close circle of coaching staff including his brother that he brought to the club with him”, the source was quoted by the Daily Star.
“He does not speak to any of the English staff. There is virtually a total cut off at the training ground.”
Following this, three players- Eden Hazard, Marcos Alonso and winter signing Olivier Giroud- have turned against the Italian mainly because of all the negative atmosphere they are sensing around the club.
Chelsea recently faced Manchester City at the Etihad and despite the scoreline was just 1-0, the stats showed how poor the Blues were. Well, to perfectly fair, ‘poor’ is something very least we could say about their performance.
The Italian opted to go with a false-nine tactic and this saw Eden Hazard getting deprived of any service up front. Forget the Belgian, Chelsea – as a whole – failed to register a single shot on target and this followed by Hazard criticising his manager’s tactics by saying that if Olivier Giroud or Alvaro Morata had played up front, it would have been easier for him to play against City’s firm defence.
Giroud, on the other hand, added:“Could we have been more ambitious? It is a good question. The coach made his tactics. We tried to respect that.”
Finally, when asked about what went wrong against City, left wing-back Marcos Alonso accepted that although Chelsea aren’t short in quality, they have an attitude problem.
The Blues next face Crystal Palace at Stamford Bridge on Sunday and will be desperate to bounce back to winning ways.