Every time a manager takes the charge of a highly demotivated side, he is already under pressure to deliver in a shortest period of time and if he is also in danger of losing his star players, pressure triples over him. This is something that seems to be happening with Chelsea’s newly appointed manager Antonio Conte who is already under tremendous pressure to deliver results in the first half of the upcoming English premier league season and recently when few media houses reported that Italian club Juventus is after his in-form 27-year-old midfielder Nemanja Matić, he has lost his patience. This is despite that fact that Matić could not impress anyone in the last domestic season and after arrival of N’Golo Kante in the side his place in the first team was already highly uncertain. But refusing any interest in releasing Serbian footballer, Conte has issued a warning to the Italian side that they are not going to release their player at any cost. Talking about the role Italian manager has planned for Matic in the upcoming season, Conte said in a news conference ahead of Chelsea‘s game against Liverpool in the International Champions Cup, “He is not for sale and I know with work he can become a fantastic midfielder, one of the best in the world. He is a very important player for me, he is very important in my idea of football. He knows this and I’m delighted by his attitude and behaviour and I see in him commitment.”
Adding about the highly luring transfer market and how it has now become a mean to weaken the opponents with money power, he said, “This season we are seeing a crazy market. It’s incredible. When you touch a player it’s very difficult because you must pay a lot of money. I don’t know if this situation can continue. It’s very difficult for all the teams to try and buy the players.
“Now, we are starting to speak about £100 million, £120 million, £95 million, and these prices are incredible, but this is football now.”
Moreover, talking about his target of the window, like Napoli centre-back Kalidou Koulibaly and Sporting Lisbon’s William Carvalho, he furthered, “It’s important that we must maintain the passion. This is the most important thing, to transfer our passion and transfer it to fans and players. The money is important but not everything. It is important for the clubs to reach the right targets not to spend because we want to spend money.”
Nemanja Matic: Vlad1988 / Shutterstock.com