Chelsea man Antonio Conte taking one for the team

Yes, Chelsea hates Tottenham. But what Chelsea fans really hate is competition. On paper, Fulham should be a great rival but they are no threat to the Blues and few fans really get all that excited about that particular derby. Same goes for Arsenal or Tottenham and those rivalries are diluting with every passing year.

Tottenham, after spending all summer getting told no or rejecting manager after manager, finally landed on Nuno Espirito Santo. Now, Nuno is a fine manager but that far down Spurs’ list, it was always going to be a disaster. It has not been helped by Harry Kane acting like the teenager who is told no. Just months after being hired, Nuno has been sacked and replaced by Antonio Conte.

Former Chelsea manager Antonio Conte is taking one for the team by taking charge of a team doomed for disaster under him tenure. There has been a lot of nonsensical talk about who is and who isn’t a “Chelsea man” which here means idolizing someone for (mostly) false reasons and then somehow looping masculinity into it. But what Conte is doing at Spurs is taking one for the Chelsea team, and if anyone is going to get a silly moniker, let it be the one falling on his sword for the Blues.

See, Manchester United has been toeing around Conte for weeks now. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s win against Tottenham provided just the stay of execution he needed. More than that, it has now taken his biggest competition off the table. Conte at United would have been truly dangerous to Chelsea.

No offense to Solskjaer who has done better than anyone expected, but he’s very much hit his ceiling. United will never be more than an also ran under him. But with Conte, a manager known for taking also rans into champions, United’s deep pockets would have been a great concern. The team already has a lot of pieces he would have loved and he’d have more funds than even Chelsea to reinforce. He’s the type of big name, us against the world manager that they have needed (though that didn’t work out for Jose Mourinho).

But at Tottenham? Conte is minimized there. The team is a shadow of a shadow of what they were under Mauricio Pochettino. They don’t really have the funds to support Conte to the levels he always requires. And Kane, the moody teenager, isn’t going to suddenly turn up for another manager when he wants to be anywhere else. Conte has joined a weaker team that is a worse fit for him and that will not support him over time. It’s only going to end one way and the question is how soon?

So, Conte going to Tottenham gives him a weaker team and one he won’t be able to shape into his image. United will stick with Solskjaer for now and maintain their ceiling of also rans. And Thomas Tuchel, the only real Chelsea person in this current conversation because he’s currently manager, can sleep soundly at night knowing the Blues are in a more secure place because of Conte’s appointment at Tottenham.