After seeing Nemanja Matic move up north to arch rivals Manchester United (reportedly against his wishes), Antonio Conte has had a good long look at his squad… and he is not a satisfied man.The Italian feels the 6’4″ size hole in the middle of the Chelsea park needs immediate redressal and in that endeavour has turned his attentions to N’Golo Kante’s former Premier League winning partner Danny Drinkwater.
Now, reports in Standard Sports (do keep a pinch of salt ready) suggest that Leicester City have accepted Chelsea’s rather generous £37 million bid for the Manchester United academy graduate.
You take one of us, we’ll take one of those you thought wasn’t good enough but actually is quite good – or so, goes the Chelsea philosophy towards Manchester United’s decision to prise Nemanja Matic away.
Drinkwater never got a chance at the club from whose hallowed Academy he graduated, and spent 4 years wandering around Huddersfield Town, Cardiff City, Watford, and Barnsley before finding solace at Leicester City. A veteran of 193 caps for the Foxes, he was an integral part of the team that created arguably the greatest miracle seen in modern sports the season before last.
Antonio Conte is not a happy man these days, and he doesn’t like going into a title defense with just three top class midfielders – Kante, Cesc Fabregas, and Tiémoué Bakayoko is apparently just not good enough for Chelsea to mount a successful defence domestically and make a fist of it in Europe; hence the interest in Drinkwater… this would also allow Chelsea to seamlessly shift from their current 3-4-3 to Conte’s preferred 3-5-2 formation.