Opinion: Chelsea must aim higher than Andy Carroll and Peter Crouch
2 hours ago Mirror
Mirror's Andy Dunn argues that Antonio Conte deserves better.
Carroll and Crouch? Good lads, very decent strikers but Chelsea? If you are in, what is surely, a minority who would have seen Carroll or Crouch as a fix for a blue chip club, it would only have been a short-term fix.
Edin Dzeko, one of the most under-rated finishers in recent Premier League times, makes more sense but, at 31, would still look like a temporary measure. Right now, everything about Chelsea screams short-term, and it probably did the moment Antonio Conte agreed a pay rise but not a contract extension last summer.
And it has done since Conte made it clear that he is not the guy who makes the signings at Stamford Bridge. The days of managers having the final say on recruitment are probably numbered, but you would still expect those at the Big Six clubs to have the power of veto or final thumbs-up. Instead, Conte almost goes out of his way to highlight how little say he has in transfer policy.
Quite who is doing the preferring is not immediately clear, but whoever it is, or whoever they are, cannot have more football expertise than Conte. Oddly, for a club one step away from Wembley in one cup, still in another, holding a top-four Premier League position and looking forward to a Champions League knockout tie against Barcelona, Chelsea have a team with a stagnant look to it.
They are still competing on all fronts, but have the feel of a club treading water until the next, inevitable managerial change. Changing managers has not done Chelsea any particular harm over the last 15 years or so. And leaving Chelsea with mutual consent or otherwise will not do the future career prospects of Conte any harm at all.