Recruitment

It’s been well documented that there’s been a rift between Antonio Conte and the Chelsea board this season, especially after failing to sign their primary targets. The selling of Nemanja Matic and Diego Costa have certainly set Chelsea back this season, and the recruitments of Danny Drinkwater & Ross Barkley certainly don’t help. The board’s inability to get Conte’s primary target is the main reason for the rift and it certainly doesn’t look like Antonio Conte will be at Chelsea next season. This is an issue that doesn’t revolve around Conte’s flaws and can be resolved almost immediately, but instead the flaws of the board, which realistically can only be resolved in the long term. In order to solve this issue of recruitment, the board could either buy certain players before recruiting a manager or bring in scouts or transfer negotiators that can attract world class players.

The board first signing players is definitely more unrealistic and unorthodox, however, such a method can help mitigate the rift and division between the manager and the board in the future. Additionally, in terms of bringing scouts, Arsenal recently brought in Sven Mislintat, and with his recruitment, they were able to get Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang & Henrikh Mkhitaryan. In this case, Chelsea could adopt a strategy similar to Arsenal in the sense of hiring someone whose great at finding talent and quality in the market.

Tactics

Chelsea won the Premier League last season with flying colours, winning the most amount of matches by a title-winning side in the history of the Premier League. Conte’s ability to switch the team’s style of play to a counter-attacking 3–4–3 definitely helped Chelsea en route to the title, however, now everyone has figured out his tactic. Chelsea haven’t been scoring nearly the same amount of goals as last season, and aren’t creating the same amount of chances. While some of the issues on the field have to do with recruitment, Conte’s inability to adjust his tactics when teams are now able to play against the 3–4–3 is what has cost Chelsea in so many games this season.

Furthermore, last season Conte played every match with an intent to win and always be on the front foot. However, after teams have started figuring out his tactics (and he hasn’t tried to change the formation.), he decided to adopt a more defensive approach, especially against the top 6. An example of when Conte’s tactics have really come into question this season is against Manchester City away, when they decided to stop pressing while 1–0 down. Antonio Conte’s inability to change it up (apart from other factors) is what has ultimately cost Chelsea so many points this season, leaving them 8 points off Spurs(at the time of writing).