Chelsea: Blaming Conte for Salah’s sale is lazy sensationalism

Some in the media have tried to create a narrative that Antonio Conte can be blamed for Mohamed Salah’s sale from Chelsea. That is pure lazy sensationalism.

Before the Liverpool match, Antonio Conte was asked in his press conference if he had any part in the decision to sell Salah to Roma. Conte replied with the obvious “no”.

But this will now turn into a narrative. A lazy narrative born out of Jose Mourinho’s recent comments about not being to blame for Salah’s departure from Chelsea on loan.

Since clear and obvious facts are being ignored to craft his narrative, it is best to review. Salah joined Chelsea from Basel when Jose Mourinho was manager. He struggled for playing time, both from being poor and from Mourinho refusing to play him over other players. This caused Salah to depart on loan, first to Fiorentina and then later to Roma. The Roma loan included an option to buy, which Roma utilized at the end of the loan in 2016.

Conte was announced as the Chelsea manager in April and had likely crafted plans for squad building before hand. But some decisions would have been out of his hands, such as the sale of Salah. As soon as an option to buy was included in Salah’s loan to Roma (when Jose Mourinho was still Chelsea manager), the sale was effectively on the table.

To try to place blame on Conte, the new Chelsea manager, for a sale that was more or less started a year prior is the same type of lazy sensationalist journalism that has Conte sacked any week Chelsea do not win. It is the same type of journalism that said Conte would be sacked after losing to Burnley on opening day. And the same as saying Conte wanted to leave as far back as March of 2017. Not to mention the hoopla over the odds getting slashed in the fall of 2016 for his sacking.

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For whatever reason, the English media has targeted Antonio Conte again and again and again. They are creating any type of narrative to discredit him or put a stain on his time at Chelsea. And the sad part is that it has had a tangible impact upon the fans. Some began to turn on Conte as soon as things started to look bad in early 2018 because they believed in the narrative the media created.

And even with the full backing of the fans and Conte’s insistence that he was staying, the media kept hammering on that he would be gone at the end of the season. They delighted when Chelsea began to struggle because it gave them further fuel for their fire.

Trying to blame Conte for the departure of Salah is just grasping at straws to further discredit Conte. It appears that slinging mud about Chelsea players, staff, and management results in a story people want to read. It no longer matters if it was ever based in fact because the narrative feeds itself.

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Conte deserves better than to be blamed for things that can only tentatively (at best) be linked to him. And this narrative about Salah and who is to blame will not go away. With Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United coming up in the FA Cup, Mourinho passing the blame on Salah, and Salah potentially set to win a Champions League, the narrative will grow and grow in the coming weeks. And it will always be lazy and sensationalist. Conte, Chelsea, fans and players will all suffer as a result.