Much has been made of the opposite-worldly insanity of CFC`s implosion after every single successful season.
Debated causes and reasons have varied from an owner determined to be seen as the one and only true force behind the team`s success – hence the serial wing-clipping of triumphant managers – to this writer`s belief that other machinators are pushing forward their own ambitions – recent fully-qualified UEFA coach Michael Emenalo anyone?
Whatever the truth, the fact remains that, yet again, a highly successful manager – and one entirely and publicly cognizant and complimentary of the invaluable input of his excellent owner – has yet again been dragged over the coals, his peace of mind shattered, precisely when he should have been resting and gaining momentum for the hard work to come.
Anyone underestimating the power of this momentum simply isn’t a student of the game: see Sir Alex Ferguson for details.
No Chelsea manager in the Roman Abramovich era has had a second season as momentous as his first successful one (other than one, er, special one).
So the odds already suggest that next season may be more squib than sensation.
All eyes are rightly on this summer transfer market, the squad nowhere near the two viable players per position standard identified by the top Italian managers as necessary to fight on all fronts.
As Antonio Conte has made clear via whoever has been negotiating on his behalf, money is not the most important thing to him: he wants as much control as possible of footballing matters; of course he does, what top-class manager wouldn`t?
Indeed, just do a quick survey of highly paid managers seduced into ignoring adverse managing conditions by the glare of the zeros on their salary cheques and see how they succeeded.
Whatever negotiations were going on behind the scenes, the CFC machine pushed back and pushed back hard behind via their favorite mouthpieces in the right of centre media – Telegraph and Mail.
The message was loud and clear: the mighty Chelsea will never kow-tow to a manager – take it or leave it, signor.
Only one thing was a bit, well, off about all that: it simply didn’t sound like the owner we close CFC observers have come to know and admire.
According to everybody and anybody who has spent any kind of time with Mr Abramovich, the last thing this remarkable, powerful man does is rattle his sabre and make bombastic pronouncements such as those these days regularly infesting the sports pages of the above publications.
As a sophisticated Russian, if RA does want to make a statement, he does it via his actions (such as the week-long Cobham visit earlier this season) under the gaze of the globally-renowned font of all genuine English news, The Times of London.
The Telegraph and Mail are creatures of the CFC board, not the owner.
For instance, when those papers rehashed the Times` exclusive on the Abramovich Cobham visit, they added none other than Michael Emenalo as a participant.
So, if this media battering of successful Chelsea managers is not inspired by the owner (and it is not), then who?
Well, for a start, this needling via media is an out and out provocation: every single employee on earth in any job is entitled to ask for things after a successful period.
But at CFC, this immediately hits the sports pages with ‘Shock! Horror!` force.
This in no possible way suits or serves the owner, a man who does not give a fig what right-wing newspaper readers/fans think (which is an issue for later).
It certainly doesn’t suit the players – existing Blues or prospective ones – who yet again see a manager they respect cut down to size.
And it all risks making any big deal Alpha male figure – i.e. every football manager – explode! (the desired effect?).
Few if any Chelsea managers have been able to sustain their energies after the post-successful-season clownshow; most instantly reset their view of CFC as not the long-term home they first thought, but just a stepping stone.
And the million dollar question remains: who does any of this benefit?!
With the owner stepping down as a ‘full-time co-manager` of the team earlier this decade, who else is there within CFC with the ambition to manage the club?
Who else would want to stop the manager bringing in his own Italian assistant manager – in case – what? – that the assistant became The Don`s natural successor?
In who else`s interest is it that there not be any continuity, any hope of a Blue dynasty?
Well, I for one have never heard any rumours suggesting that Marina Granovskaia has been working for a UEFA Pro coaching badge.
I`ll leave it to you to draw your own conclusions, dear reader.
All I will say is that no manager in his right-mind would achieve what he has achieved at Chelsea this season past and walk away with the ultimate managerial test – the Premiership/CL double – beckoning.
It will remain to be seen how much the post-season clownshow has chipped away at Don Antonio`s soul – current pathetic PR exercises aimed at pretending all is suddenly fine are laughable.
If it has then short- to medium-term disaster looms.
I have followed this club longer than most have been alive and I have never seen such perfect dovetailing of charisma, strategic intelligence and pride-inducing performance as that generated by Don Antonio Conte.
Never have the Chelsea faithful sung a manager`s name so early in the season and with such affection.
Even the tiny gesture of the manager coming out to hug every player on the pitch post-game seems as if everybody has been doing it forever – The Don made it so and now even the former one mimics him.
Chelsea isn`t the normal run-of-the-mill working man`s club; it`s the flashy yet cool jewel of the trendy King`s Road; Antonio Conte epitomizes that cool, that style, effortlessly becoming one of us from the off.
He has never tried to be special or bigger than the club; he has never sulked post-match or sent reporters doing their jobs away with a flea in their ear or mocked them.
He is The Ideal Chelsea Manager, the one many of us have been waiting for most of our lives.
I personally believe that RA understands this too – hence the unprecedented Cobham visit and his clear direction that he was there for his manager and no player was to try and make contact with him over the manager`s head – then or ever.
Which is why I hope the owner understands that Antonio Conte`s so-called ‘demands` are the actions of the ultimate professional, designed to help him do his job better – that`s all; not an ego-stroke or a power-grab.
The one solitary dropping of his guard was when, near mental and physical exhaustion, Conte allowed himself to be sucked into a text-tiff with Diego Costa early on in his vastly-deserved family vacation.
While the same ‘gremlins` that masterminded the clownshow jumped all over this as proof that Conte was not deserving of even a smidge more power, claiming tens of millions would be lost in any Costa transfer, let`s wait and see what actually happens in reality.
Meanwhile, those same gremlins are genuinely terrified at the possibility of a CFC dynasty in the offing.
My guess is that they`ll continue to position Conte`s professionalism as a power-grab that risks undermining the owner`s legacy.
I believe (and hope) that the owner won’t bite this time.
He surely knows that, in Antonio Conte, he finally has the ideal balance of winning football unblemished by personal arrogance.
We`ll know soon enough.
And the timing couldn’t be more critical: Luiz, Cahill, Fabregas are getting no younger; Courtois and Hazard are surrounded by year-round transfer talk; Matic seems all but gone up north; Alonso and Moses are believed not to be shoo-ins and in need of competition (I would hardly call the stellar likes of Sandro ‘competition`: ‘replacement` more like); Costa is, well, Costa.
Incredibly, only Azpilicueta, Kante, Pedro and Willian can be said to be ongoing core Blues.
With Champions League football coming, the Chelsea squad needs a thorough restructuring and who better than The Don to mastermind it.
This is not a one-season job – though if anyone can do it that quick, it`s the man who took us from mid-table to champions in one season.
The mere idea that such a man`s firm hand would be gone after next season is horrifying.
The foundations that were put in place with Mr A`s arrival – some already there via Ranieri, the winning mentality enshrined by a brilliant young Portuguese manager, goosed up by Carlo Ancelotti and briefly husnaded by the likes of Hiddink and Di Matteo – those foundations now need rebuilding.
In the wrong hands, we wouldn’t be looking at the usual one or two season dip, but rather who-knows-how-long in the wilderness.
Never has there been a tougher act to follow at Stamford Bridge than Antonio Conte.
Never has there been a worse time to try disproving that fact.