Jamie Carragher believes Antonio Conte won’t be the Chelsea boss this time next year.
Conte is eager to build on last season’s Premier League triumph and recently said he was keen to avoid another “Mourinho season” after winning the title.
Chelsea won the league in 2014/15 under Jose Mourinho, but after a poor start to the following season he was on his way out of Stamford Bridge by December.
Conte has added the likes of Alvaro Morata, Tiemoue Bakayoko and Antonio Rüdiger to his squad this summer, but with Nemanja Matic joining Manchester United and Diego Costa set to leave the club the Italian wants more reinforcements.
Carragher told Sky Sports that Chelsea’s way of operating won’t be to Conte’s liking.
“I think he’s the type of manager who won’t accept the involvement from people above, especially on the back of winning the title,” said Carragher.
“He’s not going to go quietly. It’s not great for your club when your manager’s coming out and speaking the way he is.
“Chelsea have a very ruthless business model. They’re a bit a like Real Madrid. I don’t think they value the manager like other clubs do. They’re not scared to get rid of a top manager.
“But you can’t really complain. Since (Roman) Abramovich came in they’ve won more trophies than anyone else or it’s very close between them and United.
“They have a model there where they have a big say in how that club’s run – there’s different people involved there, so maybe that’s a frustration for him (Conte).
“I think the Matic deal is a perfect example of that. If you’re a manager you’d say ‘why would I want to let him go’, especially to a rival.
“But they’ll be saying ‘£45 million for a 29-year-old and we’ve got a replacement there who’s 22 or 23’.
“The success they’ve had in changing managers, they’re not going to take anything like that off Conte.
“They got rid of Mourinho and (Carlo) Ancelotti, so I’ll be very surprised if he’s still here in 12 months.”
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