Tough summer decisions await Conte
It's obvious that Antonio Conte’s main target will be to finish the Premier League as champions and possibly add the FA Cup to make it League and Cup double in his first season just like his former coach and fellow Italian, Carlo Ancelotti did at Chelsea. What ever is the outcome come summer, Conte will be faced by nail bitting, head breaking decisions once again as he mold yet another squad capable of out doing the class of 2016-2017 squad.
Starting from the back, Goalkeeper Asmir Begovic wants to leaves the club for another where he will be guaranteed first team action and replacing a backup goalkeeper is harder than replacing first choice goalkepper as the club found out in January. Salvatore Sirigu, Craig Gordon are among names mentioned to replace Begovic in January but none of them materialized.
In defense, Kurt Zouma does not seem to fit in, playing as one of the back three as he isn't the most comfortable with his feet and having Ake back from his loan spell at Bournemouth and playing well, Zouma's future becomea even more complicated. Highly rated Andreas Christensen is 70% guaranteed to be back in the team at the end of his 2 years loan at Borussia Monchengladbach in the summer, which will also not help Kurt Zouma's case at Chelsea and with French defender openly admitting that he won't like stay on the bench next season, it all but means that Zouma's space in the squad will be up for grabs next summer. Chelsea could use that opportunity to test the water for Napoli defender Kalidou Koulibaly and Rudiger of Roma as John Terry nears retirement. With Cahill, Azpilicueta, David Luiz, Ake Christensen, Conte could urge the club to keep John Terry for one more season. He could also decide to recall Tomas Kalas who is currently on loan at Fulham and to see Conte spare time to see him in action again Spurs in the FA this afternoon means he is under consideration by the former Juventus coach.
In midfield, Chelsea recently sold Oscar and John Obi Mikel leaving the club short of options in that department. Cesc Fabregas has been mainly used as an impact player with Conte’s decisions making it clear to all to see that he prefers Mobile midfielders to Slow Technical ones such as Mikel who didn't play one single minute of official match under Conte and was subsequently sold to Tianjin Tida in China. With Fabregas future not certain, Chelsea could make moves to bring in more midfielders in the summer. Marchisio of Juventus, Bernardo Silva of Monaco, in fact all the midfielder players of Monaco have been linked with Chelsea. Nathaniel Chalobah is likely to remain in the squad but his fellow former youth Chelsea player, Lewis Baker who is making a case to be integrated into the first while on loan at Vittese in Netherlands could be brought back but the same can't be said of former Vittese midfielder, Van Ginkel who is on loan for the second time at PSV despite his better form. Who will sign for Chelsea this summer remains to be seen.
Wing Backs remain the biggest issue for Antonio Conte as all his efforts to provide adequate backups for both Victor Moses and Marcus Alonso were futile. The likes of Schalke 04's Kolasinac and Valencia Joao Cancelo were reportedly approached to switch to the Blues without success. The club is likely to have more names to pursue in the summer.
In attack. The biggest issue will be if Diego Costa will remain at the club or asked to be transferred, I believe the later will be the case. He has been angling for a move since last summer when he wanted to move back to his former club, Atletico Madrid and again in January after the club received a crazy offer for him from a Chinese club. At this point I don't think this summer will be different and I feel it will be too much for the club to go into another argument with Diego Costa and his people. The man most likely to replace him will be Spanish Real Madrid striker Alvaro Morata but if he's made unavailable like last summer, Chelsea could switch attention to Swansea hitman Fernando Llorente. Michy Batshuayi's time at the club could be up in the summer as it's unlikely for the Belgian striker to accept another bench role next season and with on loan Youth Striker Tammy Abraham surpassing expectations at Bristol City, only few will argue if Antonio Conte decides to make him part of the first team squad next season.
Antonio Conte is once again faced with another summer full of decisions to make but it remains to be seen if the Italian will manage to make Chelsea stronger but judging by how he managed the squad with little time he had after the Euros, few can bet against the former Juventus man doing even a better job.
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