Whenever a manager joins a new club, he usually inherits a team that has underachieved and players that don’t really fit his own image of how he wants his team to operate.
This is something that most of the new managers in the Premier League are currently struggling with as Mourinho, Guardiola and Antonio Conte takes over their respective underachieving clubs with expensive squads and money to burn.
Of those managers, Conte probably went to Chelsea with the biggest rebuilding job to do having finished 10th last season.
He had a busy transfer window as he spent £117million, but he would probably have preferred it to be busier still. He signed Belgian striker Michy Batshuayi who adds depth to the Chelsea front line but has so far been unable to displace Diego Costa from the starting line-up after great early season form. N’Golo Kante was probably the biggest summer signing for Chelsea, signed to give Chelsea team more legs in midfield. The title-winning Frenchman works tirelessly. Marcos Alonso is little more than an expensive backup, but it is the signing of David Luiz that summed up his need to bolster one position in particular.
Conte, as he has shown recently, is a big advocate of playing 3 at the back. But with promising defender Kurt Zouma recovering from a ruptured cruciate ligament and John Terry showing his age, that left Conte with just Gary Cahill to build his defence around. Bids flew in for defenders across Europe and unsurprisingly the biggest focus was on Serie A defenders. A 38 million pound bid went in for Napoli’s Koulibaly but was rejected. Torino centre-half Nikola Maksimovic, Alessio Romagnoli at Ac Milan and Leonardo Bonucci were all approach by Chelsea without success. It was thought that he was looking to add two to his back line.
So in a scramble on the last day, Chelsea moved to bring David Luiz back to the club. He is a supremely talented footballer, but he is not in keeping with the ‘no nonsense, do the basics first’ mold that the Italian manager was looking for. It did highlight how desperate he was to improve his options. Even now they’re being linked with moves for Portuguese centre-halves Ruben Semedo and Real Madrid’s Pepe.
To cover his lack of defenders, Conte started the season playing 4 at the back. They had good results against the teams they should beat, but after a 3-0 loss against Arsenal and a terrible defensive performance against Liverpool, Conte had seemingly had enough.
He is now employing Azpilicueta as a third center back. The little Spaniard isn’t an obvious choice to play the role but the last two Chelsea performances have warranted the change in formation. They have won both games without conceding.
It is obvious that Conte still has work to do on his defence, but it should just be a case now of opening the cheque book and a player slotting straight in as his team adapt to his new 3-4-3 formation.