Chelsea cast-offs and misses could (re)unite at Inter Milan with Antonio Conte

Nothing sends the transfer rumour mill into high gear like a managerial appointment. Now that he has his payout from Chelsea, Antonio Conte looks set to take the job at Inter Milan and bring in a few former Blues.

Mid-May is a time of triumph for Antonio Conte. On May 12, 2017, he clinched the Premier League title at West Bromwich Albion. On May 19, 2018, he won his first cup as a manager, lifting the FA Cup with a win over Manchester United. And just a few days ago on May 21, the Court of Arbitration for Sport awarded him the full value of the third year of his contract with Chelsea FC, £9 million.

Within hours of Conte being legally free and vindicated, reports picked up that Conte would become manager of Inter Milan soon after the end of the season. Not long after that, the first wave of transfer rumours started doing the rounds.

Two of his first targets could be former Chelsea players Romelu Lukaku and Victor Moses. Lukaku was strongly linked with a return to Stamford Bridge in the summer of 2017, when Conte needed to replace Diego Costa. Manchester United’s shadow technical director and Lukaku’s then-agent Mino Raiola (currently suspended for being what he’s always been) played Chelsea to engineer Lukaku’s move to Manchester United, leaving the Blues to sign their other option, Alvaro Morata. We all know how that worked out, and now Conte wants the player he missed out on rather than the one he had.

Inter Milan are supposedly willing to send Ivan Perisic and a pile of cash to Manchester to secure Lukaku this summer.

A reunion between Antonio Conte and Victor Moses would be much more interesting. Conte kept Moses in the squad to start the 2016/17 season, and the Nigerian looked like Stamford Bridge would be a temporary a stop in his journeyman career as all the loans Chelsea had sent him on before. Then came Conte’s switch to a 3-4-3 with Moses as right wing-back, and by January Moses was linked with a move to Barcelona.

Moses, obviously, was one of the biggest victims of Chelsea hiring Maurizio Sarri. Like Gary Cahill, Danny Drinkwater and, to a lesser extent, Cesc Fabregas, Moses was on the losing side of Sarri’s instantly-evaluated-never-to-be-reconsidered snap judgments in preseason.

It was a stark contrast to what Moses experienced two years earlier with Antonio Conte. Conte saw Moses’ latent talent for a position that was out of favour at the time. He knew that if and when he switched to a three-man defence, Moses would have this particular role on the right. There was no thought of “you can’t do this one thing so you can’t do anything for me,” as Moses experienced in August 2018. Under Conte it was “you can do a bunch of things, but the real pay-off will come later when…”

Moses owes two of his best years and a major increase in his profile and transfer value to Antonio Conte. Conte knows how to get the best out of him, and Moses will certainly go all the extra miles for the manager who elevated him from a utility winger to a near-world-class wing-back.

Inter Milan already has several players who were linked to Chelsea during the Antonio Conte era. Radja Nainggolan was in the rumour mill throughout Conte’s first year and into his second summer. Chelsea’s interest in him died off in 2018, which is particularly ironic since Nainggolan is one of the only people in global football who could out-smoke Maurizio Sarri. Perhaps Sarri didn’t want anyone pinching his cigarettes.

Inter also features Kwadwo Asamoah, Marcelo Brozovic and Antonio Candreva, who all did their time in the Blues’ rumour mill.

Serie A is shaping up to be the next “it” league for the top managers. Carlo Ancelotti is already there. Conte looks set for Inter Milan, Jose Mourinho has been linked to AS Roma and Pep Guardiola is at the top of the odds tables to replace Massimiliano Allegri.

Antonio Conte will make Inter Milan appointment viewing for many Chelsea fans, as much for their football as the ongoing adult-themed soap opera that is Mauro Icardi.