Everything Antonio Conte Did in Two Years at Chelsea

When Antonio Conte took over the reins at Chelsea following a disastrous 2015/16 season for the Stamford Bridge club which saw them finish in 10th place, behind the likes of Stoke City, West Ham and Southampton with 50 points, the Blues aim was predominantly to get back into the Champions League.

Conte’s start to life at Chelsea didn’t quite go to plan, as the Blues won their first three matches of the season against the likes of West Ham, Watford and Burnley, before drawing to Swansea, as well as suffering poor defeats to Liverpool and Arsenal which prompted the Italian to change his system to a 5-2-3 which sparked a sensational run of form.

The Stamford Bridge club hammered the likes of Manchester United 4-0, Everton 5-0 and beat Manchester City 3-1 at the Etihad Stadium on their way to equalling the then-record for the most consecutive Premier League wins in a season with 13, as well as the most home and away wins against different sides (12) and the second-highest ever Premier League points tally at the time with 93, just two short of the previous record that was held by Jose Mourinho in the 2004/05 season, meaning that the Blues points tally was 43 better off than that of the previous campaign under Mourinho and Guus Hiddink.

Conte’s fallout at Chelsea seemingly came from his side’s summer transfer window of 2017, where the likes of Nemanja Matic were sold without consultation of the manager, as well as a general fall out with Diego Costa, two kingpins of his title-winning side, who were replaced by the likes of Tiemoue Bakayoko, Danny Drinkwater and Alvaro Morata, with the Italian criticising the club for not increasing their quality in the playing staff, effectively seeing him leave at the end of the 2017/18 season, following a fifth-place finish with 70 points.

In Conte’s time at Chelsea, the Blues made it to the FA Cup final in 2017 when they were beaten 2-1 by Arsenal at Wembley. The Blues had beaten Peterborough United, Brentford, Wolves, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur on their way to the final. In 2018, Chelsea won the FA Cup against United in the final thanks to an Eden Hazard penalty, having beaten Norwich, Newcastle, Hull, Leicester City and Southampton on their way.

In the League Cup, Chelsea exited in the fourth round in 20116/17, having beaten both Bristol Rovers and Leicester, before losing to West Ham in the fourth round, meanwhile, in the 2017/18 campaign, the Blues reached the semi-finals where they were beaten by Arsenal 2-1 on aggregate.

Meanwhile, in the UEFA Champions League in Conte’s last season at the club, the Stamford Bridge club finished second in Group E behind AS Roma with 11 points, as a result, meeting Barcelona in the round of 16 where they were comfortably beaten 4-1 on aggregate.

Under the Italian manager, Chelsea signed the likes of N’Golo Kante, Marcos Alonso, David Luiz and Michy Batshuayi who all played an integral part in the Blues title success, as the initial three players formed a solid defence, whilst the latter scored the goal away at West Bromwich Albion which effectively wrapped up the title for the Blues.

As mentioned above, key players such as Costa and Matic departed Stamford Bridge and were replaced by players who didn’t have the sufficient quality to replace them in the likes of Drinkwater, Bakayoko and Morata. In his last season at the club, the Italian did bring in Olivier Giroud and Antonio Rudiger from Arsenal and AS Roma.

The Italian did revive some players careers at Stamford Bridge, as Gary Cahill, Victor Moses and Pedro all had arguably their best season’s at the club in the 2016/17 season, showing the former Juventus and Inter Milan manager knows how to get the best out of his squad.