Antonio Conte will probably leave Chelsea within a year, predicts Jamie Carragher

1/53
Vaishali Bhardwaj8 August 2017

Former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher believes Antonio Conte could walk away from Chelsea within a year if he doesn't sign the players he wants this summer.

Conte has cut a frustrated figure in pre-season following the departure of several of the club's younger players, including Dominic Solanke and Nathaniel Chalobah, and the sale of Nemanja Matic to Premier League rivals Manchester United.

With concerns over the size of his squad, the Italian admitted he expects the upcoming campaign to be the hardest of his career, and feared for a repeat of what happened in 2015 when then-champions Chelsea suffered a disastrous start to the season which resulted in Jose Mourinho being sacked and the club finishing in 10th place.

And Carragher believes that the club's transfer policy could frustrate Conte to the point where the 48-year-old decides to leave the club.

He told Sky Sports' The Debate show on Monday night: "I'd be very surprised if I'm sitting here in 12 months' time and he's the Chelsea manager.

"I think he's the type of manager who won't accept the involvement from people above, especially on the back of winning the title.

"He's not going to go quietly and it's not great for the club when the manager is coming out and speaking the way he is.

"What I would say is Chelsea have a business model, a very ruthless one. They're a bit like Real Madrid in that I don't think they value the manager like other clubs do.

"They're not scared to get rid of a top manager or get rid of someone after 12 months, but you can't really complain. Since Abramovich came in I think they've won more trophies than anyone.

"Maybe that is a frustration for Conte. He wants more players coming in."

Carragher then turned his attentions to the Matic sale, which Conte remained coy over when asked about it ahead of the Community Shield, simply saying reporters needed to ask the club about why the midfielder was allowed to leave for Manchester United.

Carragher added: "The Matic deal is a perfect example. If you're a manager why would you want to let him go - especially to a rival?

The 14 senior Chelsea players available to Antonio Conte

1/15

"But they'll be saying '£45m for a 29-year-old and we've got a replacement who is 22'. We don't know how good [Tiemoue Bakayoko] is going to be, but that has been their business model going forward.

"The success they've had in changing manager means they're not going to take anything like that off Conte.

"They got rid of Mourinho, they got rid of [Carlo] Ancelotti and I would be very surprised if he's here in 12 months."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in