Outgoing Chelsea boss Conte sets sights on huge payout

AND SO the end draws nigh. Antonio Conte goes into what seems certain to be his last Premier League match today with a top-four finish likely to just elude last season’s champions.

Slim hopes of another Champions League place all but evaporated as Huddersfield held his side at Stamford Bridge in midweek to ensure their own survival. While Chelsea are two points behind Liverpool in the race for the final spot, Jurgen Klopp’s side enjoy such an advantage in goal difference that only a win for the Blues at Newcastle and defeat for Liverpool at home to Brighton will be enough.

So Chelsea are already eyeing Saturday’s FA Cup final against Manchester United, apparently one last chance for Conte to grab a trophy to add to the Premier League he secured last season, his first in English football. And FA Cup finals, after all, are often landmark moments for Chelsea. That Jose Mourinho, Conte’s predecessor, and twice a Chelsea manager, will be in the opposition dug-out seems all the more appropriate. The pair have history, clashing angrily this season.

Another previous manager, Carlo Ancelotti, might replace Conte. He appears the fall-back option with Chelsea adamant they will not enter into discussions with any manager until Conte’s future is resolved. To put it bluntly, Chelsea do not want to pay the 48-year-old any more than they have to, with one year left on his contract, while he wants the money he is owed. Conte may even be willing to take a year’s sabbatical so he receives the full £9-million (about R149-million) payment.

FA Cup finals have sign-posted previous exits. It was after the 2007 final that Mourinho raged about the authorities over his dog’s quarantine status – a bizarre sign things were unravelling. By the September, he was out.

Then, when Chelsea won the trophy in 2009, fans sang for interim manager Guus Hiddink to stay, but he could not be persuaded, while in 2012 Roberto di Matteo won the FA Cup – and the Champions League – but left a few months later. The club’s hierarchy never really felt he was up to the job.

Chelsea have won the FA Cup four times since Roman Abramovich bought the club – Conte, last season, is the only manager to lose the final – but it is almost inconsequential in the bigger picture. The Russian billionaire craves the Champions League and Premier League; to end the boom-and-bust cycle the club is caught in; and to take on the Manchester clubs. —