Mountain in front of Chelsea’s Conte

New Chelsea manager Antonio Conte has established himself as a brilliant coach in his ten-year long coaching career. The Italian won three consecutive Serie A titles with Juventus and during his national duty, the tactician surprised everyone in the Euro 2016 defeating tournament favorites Spain and Belgium convincingly. But this is surely going to be one of the biggest challenges of Conte’s managerial career as everyone is eager to know how he will manage Chelsea in arguably the world's ‘toughest' league. Chelsea’s downfall started with the beginning of last year’s English Premier League. The then Jose Mourinho-led Chelsea side consisting Eden Hazard, Cesc Fàbregas, Diego Costa, Branislav Ivanovic, John Terry and Nemanja Matic clinched the title in the 2014-15 season. But the scenario changed drastically later. Things went worse when Mourinho clashed with team doctor Eva Carneiro and later criticized players in media following several losses. Rumors were spreaded that players were revolting against the special one. Just after few months, the same Chelsea squad under the same manager seemed like forgot how to play football as a team and produced some shocking results. The defending champions stunningly had dropped near the relegation zone after earning just 16 points from their opening 15 matches. Eventually Mourinho lost his job and the club body brought Guus Hiddink as interim coach to stop further decline for Chelsea who later finished at 10th position. Now it’s time for Conte to fix a lot of things for Chelsea in his fresh campaign. In every department - midfield, defence or striking - some key problems need to be solved soon. Many of the players lost their form dramatically recently and lost their confidence too. Conte needs to form deadly combination with Costa, Hazard and Pedro Rodriguez in the front. The ill-tempered Costa played awfully last season scoring just 12 goals. His rough attitude on the pitch often brought some bad results for the team’s reputation. Pedro was inconsistent in his first EPL season as well. Two of the main architects of Chelsea’s success in 2014-15 were midfield duo Fàbregas and Matić. The Spaniard Fabregas managed 18 assists and 3 goals in 2014-15 but managed only 7 assists last season. Matic also was so poor that at one point he was dropped from the playing eleven. Conte has to build a solid midfield again with these players. The defence was woeful as only Aston Villa and Bournemouth conceded more home goals than Chelsea (30) in the Premier League in 2015/16. Ivanovic was horrific in throughout the season. Skipper Terry and Gary Cahill could not able to produce solidity in the back four and even goalie Thibaut Courtois had lost his confidence under the bar. These things should be sorted out very soon. This will be interesting to see how the new manager will apply his preferable 3-5-2 formation with Chelsea. Conte was successful with this formation in both Juventus and Italy. But in EPL this has not been proven yet. And now the question is whether Conte will stick to this formula or bring something new? In the pre-season friendly Conte played almost 4-2-4 formation meaning more attacking approach. But these are only friendly and surely Conte will try something new with quality wingers on his squad that also includes Willian, Cuadrado, Marko Marin and Victor Moses. However, Conte has signed some key players like N'Golo Kanté, one of the best players last year, from Liecester City. It will be interesting to see how he will use Kante in playing eleven as they already have Matic, Fàbregas, Oscar, Loftus-Cheek and John Obi Mikel in midfield. He also signed striker Michy Batshuayi form Marseille after his impressive display in Euro 2016 who will challenge Costa upfront. Media reports suggest Chelsea have made a bid for PSG striker Edinson Cavani which was rejected later and also linking with Everton striker Romelu Lukako. Conte wants to bring back the Belgian forward Lukako to Stamford Bridge. That means if Chelsea able to bring Lukaku or Cavani, then Costa’s place in the starting eleven will be under threat or Conte can use two strikers in front. So Conte, who is often considered as a master tactician, will surely face an uphill task in the most competitive league especially where world-class managers like Pep Guardiola, Jose Mourinho, Jurgen Klopp, Arsen Wenger, Mauricio Pochettino, Claudio Raneiri will run for the elusive EPL crown.