As of the time of writing, Chelsea have exited the Carabao Cup, beaten 2-1 by Arsenal at The Emirates. They are currently third in the Premier League, three points behind Manchester United but, more importantly, FIFTEEN points behind the leaders, Manchester City so a successful title defence is out of the question.

In February they will resume their involvement in the Champion’s League but, with two legs to play against Barcelona, this could be a very short return to the competition.

All of which leaves the probability that, by March, the only trophy available for Chelsea to lift will be the FA Cup which, even if they were to win it, would hardly represent a very successful season.

Last year Conte was lauded for his achievement of winning the title in his first season in England. He undoubtedly did well but the success was, in the main, dramatically overstated. It has to be remembered that the rest of the final top six had all been involved in European competition, an irritation not inflicted on the Chelsea manager. Indeed Manchester United, who finished sixth, had gone all the way in the Europa League and won it.

So, in many ways, he was lucky not to have to suffer through two games per week and, with the exception of three Carabao Cup ties, his midweeks were game-free.

So winning the title with a team who most certainly started the season as one of the favourites and doing so with no other distractions, was not the stellar achievement some would have us believe. It was good, but not THAT good.

This season, of course, the truth is being told. Conte is finding out how much more difficult it is to A) Defend the title and B) Win it whilst simultaneously competing in the Champion’s League.

In fairness to the Italian, he was aware of the problems that were going to face his club this season and was, in fact, very vocal about strengthening the squad back in August.

In came Antonio Rüdiger, Timoué Bakayoko and Álvaro Morata and all three, at one stage or another, have looked a little shaky. They will, no doubt, become great players for Chelsea but their settling-in period is turning out to be a little longer than expected.

The latest Conte utterances have been to explain why Chelsea didn’t try to buy Alexis Sánchez. His words on this subject don’t actually make a lot of sense and he may have been wiser just to stay quiet.

Saying that his club couldn’t afford the wages for the player is a little ridiculous when considering that Sánchez’s valuation ended up being around £35 million. Any team budgeting for such a player would probably anticipate spending around £60 million, as was the case in August when Manchester City wanted him.

That being the case, the £25 million saved by taking him now would pay around two years of his wages at £300,000 per week.

Conte expected us to believe that Chelsea couldn’t afford this and yet they spent £29 million on Rüdiger, £40 million on Bakayoko and £60 million on Morata.

As previously mentioned, he may have been better keeping his mouth shut on this subject as all he has achieved is to make the club look like cheapskates in the fans’ eyes and brought up a subject in which nobody was previously interested or ever expected to happen, ie Sánchez to Chelsea!

So what next for Antonio? Well winning the FA cup or not his future has probably already been determined by Roman Abramovich. Without ever appearing or speaking in public, the impression is that the Russian isn’t comfortable with Conte in charge at Chelsea and would like a change sooner rather than later.

He is sensible enough to leave things as they are until the end of the season as replacing the manager now wouldn’t actually change very much.

As soon as the season ends though just watch how fast the announcement that “Antonio Conte has left Chelsea by mutual consent”, is made.

Shortly afterwards he will board a plane to Italy but don’t be surprised if he returns, Ranieri-like, to the Premier League in a few years time.

Read more from the author at WhySayAnything.com