Antonio Conte made the big decision to shift Chelsea to a 3-4-3 formation. Turning that shift into a Premier League title required many smaller, equally bold and sometimes difficult decisions.
Antonio Conte’s decision to rearrange Chelsea into a 3-4-3 while losing 3-0 to Arsenal is the signal moment of Chelsea’s title-winning season. The subsequent 13-game winning streak was, at the broadest level, the result of the formation shift. Antonio Conte made a series of decisions that allowed the 3-4-3 to propel Chelsea to an unassailable lead atop the table.
Conte showed a necessary ruthlessness in his personnel changes. Chelsea were still an uncohesive, slightly mistrustful bunch following the 2015/16 season. As he had for so many managerial turnovers before, John Terry held the locker room together. Yet he had little to contribute on the pitch after the Arsenal game. Conte had to keep Terry on the sidelines without sidelining him from the squad.
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Conte brought Victor Moses in from the loan army and entrusted him with a role he had never before played. Moses and recent arrival Marcos Alonso became overnight starters. Meanwhile long-serving fan favourites Cesc Fabregas, Willian, Branislav Ivanovic and Mikel John Obi got comfortable on the bench. A few months later, Chelsea sold the latter two and Oscar.
These moves required extraordinary confidence and delicacy. If they did not achieve the desired results, he could have alienated the entire locker room. If they did, he still risked losing those players that were out of the lineup but still important to the squad – John Terry most of all. Conte believed his changes would pay off. More importantly, he handled them in such a way that he mitigated any backlash.
"When John Terry is on the bench, he knows why he is on the bench. Conte did the same with Fabregas, who can now come on an rain beautiful passes wherever he can put them. He did it with the youth, with Michy Batshuayi, with Willian, Chelsea’s reigning player of the year!… They understand why Conte is doing what he is doing, and he is in the trenches with them. – Travis Tyler, The Blue Lions"
Conte’s man-management skills were equally effective up the chain of command as well. During that trying period in the autumn he met regularly with Roman Abramovich. This prompted rumours of Conte already being on thin ice with the sack-happy owner. However, Conte earned Abramovich’s trust, and repaid it with wins.
"He made big sales in the January transfer window. He brought back Nathan Ake, which may be questionable. But he was never scared to do what he felt was right, and that shows that he has a good relationship with the board and with Roman Abramovich. They give him the freedom to make the decisions that will win Chelsea the title, the FA Cup or anything else. – Rayna Sidhu, The Blue Lions"
Chelsea outperformed all expectations in Antonio Conte’s first season. Heading into the match at the Emirates, qualifying for the Champions League seemed an appropriately challenging ambition. At halftime against Arsenal, even that seemed like it was too much of a leap for the defending 10th-place side.
The shift to the 3-4-3 righted Chelsea’s ship. Antonio Conte started seeing his vision come to life in a system more his own. With each adjustment he made to the squad the Blues were more Conte and less Mourinho.
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The endpoint of the season was all Antonio Conte. The decisions he made allowed Chelsea first to escape their doldrums and then excel to the point where the title became inevitable.