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Antonio Conte is yet another Chelsea boss facing unduly high expectations

By The Pride of London Staff

LONDON, ENGLAND - MARCH 13: Fourth official Mike Jones intervenes as Jose Mourinho manager of Manchester United and Antonio Conte manager of Chelsea clash during The Emirates FA Cup Quarter-Final match between Chelsea and Manchester United at Stamford Bridge on March 13, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)
LONDON, ENGLAND - MARCH 13: Fourth official Mike Jones intervenes as Jose Mourinho manager of Manchester United and Antonio Conte manager of Chelsea clash during The Emirates FA Cup Quarter-Final match between Chelsea and Manchester United at Stamford Bridge on March 13, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images) /
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Antonio Conte wants to avoid the fate of the last two Premier League-winning managers. His overachieving first season sets him against a much longer history at Chelsea FC.

Jose Mourinho and Claudio Ranieri lasted an average of six months on the job after winning the Premier League. Antonio Conte, after the preseason loss to Inter Milan, is concerned not repeating Chelsea’s previous title hangover.

Conte’s predicament combines the most difficult elements of Ranieri’s and Mourinho’s successes. Leicester’s title allowed club ownership to forget that the Foxes were properly a mid-table team. Rather than enjoy the Champions League ride and defend their title in a scrappy, gallant and futile way, they saddled Ranieri with expectations no manager could meet.

While Chelsea were nowhere near the underdogs that Leicester City were, Chelsea massively overachieved last season. After everything surrounding the 2015/16 season and the fact that Conte arrived only one month before the season started, a reasonable prediction and expectation was a top four finish.

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Winning the title and reaching the FA Cup finals masked the fact that Chelsea were a top-four team that happened to win the title, rather than a truly championship-calibre team. And because of Antonio Conte’s accomplishments at Juventus and his first season at Chelsea, he outpaced his learning curve.

Now that he has repeated Jose Mourinho’s and Carlo Ancelotti’s first-season success he will be judged against their standards. Mourinho and Ancelotti teams do not hover mid-table. If they do, they leave in December.

Long before Mourinho, Ranieri or Conte, Chelsea manager Tommy Docherty started the trend of Chelsea managers falling victim to over-achievement. Docherty brought Chelsea out of the second division. In their first season back in the top flight, most expected them to finish mid-table.

"They over-achieved that season, finishing sixth. The following season Chelsea were top of the league most of the season and were favourites for the FA Cup, and won the League Cup. That was the season they should have won the league or the FA Cup. Because they didn’t, and the following season they lost the FA Cup semi-final and Fairs Cup semi-final there was a sense of underachievement. – Tim Rolls, The Blue Lions"

Buy ‘Diamonds, Dynamos and Devils: The transformation of Chelsea FC under Tommy Docherty’ by Tim Rolls, available on 6th October 2017 at Amazon. You can pre-order the ebook now!

Docherty lasted only one season after their double of semi-finals. Chelsea out-performed their higher quality opponents and their own liabilities. But they fell short of the undue expectations Docherty’s early seasons built up.

In the subsequent seasons, Docherty’s successor Dave Sexton built consistency on the core of players he inherited. He won two trophies with a club that still had many players Tommy Docherty brought in and developed.

Antonio Conte similarly won his first Premier League with a team that Jose Mourinho assembled. Mourinho brought in many of the players, but more importantly shaped the team’s tactics until Antonio Conte started from a clean slate with the 3-4-3. Chelsea’s tactics had arguably evolved little since Jose Mourinho’s first tour at Stamford Bridge, persisting until that day at the Emirates.

These historical and day-to-day pressures converge on Antonio Conte on the pitch, the transfer market and the locker room. He mended Jose Mourinho’s squad, but now needs to replace many of those players for some who can better fulfill his vision. Chelsea are expeditiously moving out players, but are doing Conte no favours in obtaining replacements.

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Antonio Conte won over Chelsea’s fans by sharing their passion as well as by winning. They have high expectations for his second season, but they are also realistic about what he can accomplish. Barring any Mourinho-esque antics, they will back him even if he does not add to his trophy haul this season. Hopefully the board is similarly clear-eyed and oriented on the long-term.

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