Conte to leave Chelsea at the end of the season insists Sky Sports pundit

Conte to leave Chelsea at the end of the season insists Sky Sports pundit

Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville says he believes Chelsea manager Antonio Conte won’t be at the club come next season.

The Italian has endured a difficult second second in charge of the Blues, with his side currently 5th in the Premier League and out of all other competitions only a year after lifting the Premier League title.

And Conte’s relationship with club owner Roman Abramovich has undergone a well-documented breakdown in recent months, with the former Juventus boss insisting Abramovich’s control over transfer activity prevents Chelsea from competing at the highest level.

While Conte however has been coy on his future at Stamford Bridge, Neville insists he won’t be in the job at the end of the season.

“I don’t think he’s going to be here next season,” he said on the Gary Neville Podcast. “We’ve thought it for six or seven months.

“And that’s not because we don’t want him here, or we don’t think he’s done a great job, it’s just the nature of the job here. It’s such that when you have a season slightly worse than before, you go.

“It ends up becoming a bit messy, press conferences become the boardroom versus manager, it’s happened here many, many times.

“It has been a successful club over 10 or so years, but in the second seasons, it’s never been great. In terms of the outcome, you can’t complain about what they’ve done here. But the managers who come here know they’ve got a short period of time.”

Chelsea have spent over €200 million on new talent this season alone, however such acquisitions have proven unable to fill the void left by Diego Costa and Nemanja Matic who left last summer for Atletico Madrid and Manchester United.

Conte himself has slammed a number of his new players for ‘not being good enough’ to help his side compete at the top, but Neville believes the Italian has used those players as a excuse for poor form.

“I think if he’d gone through this season, finished fifth and things had not quite gone for him, if they’d remained competitive, I would have said that’s not such a problem.

“But it’s the idea of complaining about the lack of support in the transfer market, saying the players they signed aren’t quite as good as they should be, I don’t like that.

“I think it’s too easy for managers to say they aren’t supported. I have to say, that’s the only thing I have to say against Antonio Conte, the whinging in the press conferences.”