With Italy getting knocked out of Euro 2016, Antonio Conte can finally turn his attention to Chelsea and more importantly fixing a ton of issues which have plagued the club for a few seasons. The Blues don’t really have any long term planning and more often than not, their change in management does have a cascading effect on the team.
The Italian will be a no-nonsense manager and has already starting working on the transfers and with the Premier League starting in just over a couple of months, here are the three important issues that Conte has to fix at Chelsea.
Get rid of the deadwood
Chelsea might be bringing in players for next season but they do need to get rid of a number of players from the first team squad. They might have kept John Terry for another reason, probably for his leadership qualities, but a lot of other players need to be sold as soon as possible.
Antonio Conte might use preseason to find out which player fits his system and which ones don’t and the sooner he cans ell a few more players off, the greater the chances he would have of being able to bring in the kind of players he wants in his new generation at Chelsea.
Look into the loan signings
This has to be one of the biggest issues with Chelsea and the Italian manager should look to fix this issue as it could be a major problem in the near future. Chelsea often have more than 20 first team players out on loan to other clubs and most of those players don’t really have a chance of making it to the Chelsea squad once they return from their clubs.
Conte should look to solve this problem and sell a number of players who are away on loan with no real chance of making an impact at the Stamford Bridge club. The former Juventus manager has always been shrewd with his signings in the transfer market but even this issue of too many players out on loan is something he really needs to fix as soon as possible.
Finalise the formation
Conte loves to work with a 3-5-2 formation and made Italy the team that wowed most of us in Euro 2016. With Chelsea often playing with a 4-4-2 or even a 4-2-3-1 last season, the Italian manager has a lot of work to do regarding the formation of the team.
Chelsea do not have the personnel for playing a 3-5-2 at the moment and unless they bring in more quality next season, it does seem that Conte would have to play with a back four and then look into the rest of the squad and how they fit in.
If Conte is to get the best out of the team, he has to decide on the formation first and then fit the players into that system. Anything other than that and it could be a major problem for the club and the manager next season.
Chelsea and Conte have a lot of work to do and the faster he can fix these problems, the better the chances of doing well in the Premier League.