Todd Boehly holds ‘fruitful summit’ with ex-Chelsea boss in ‘last few hours’ to replace Pochettino

Will Ford
Chelsea co-owner Todd Boehly
Todd Boehly and the Chelsea board have spent over £1billion since their takeover.

Todd Boehly has reportedly held a ‘fruitful summit’ with former Chelsea boss Antonio Conte ‘in the last few hours’ in a bid to lure him back to Stamford Bridge to replace Mauricio Pochettino.

Pochettino has endured a difficult first season with the Blues, who currently sit ninth in the Premier League with just an outside chance of qualifying for European competition next term.

Reports suggest that Boehly and Clearlake will take stock at the end of the season to see whether they want to continue with Pochettino, who will have a year left to run on his contract.

A ‘fruitful summit’ with Conte

But Repubblica now claim that the Chelsea owner has held talks with Conte, who won the Premier League as Blues boss in 2016/17.

The report claims that ‘the Chelsea property dreams big and contacts with Conte’s entourage have already been staged in the last few hours’, in what is said to have been a ‘fruitful summit’.

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It’s further claimed that ‘Boehly has Conte in his head and awaits a definitive response in the coming weeks’ and that ‘Chelsea will do everything to convince him to accept, with a very important offer at an economic level and an ambitious project in the buying campaign’.

Essentially, they will pay him a huge salary and give him a big transfer budget.

‘Chelsea are serious’ and the club has ‘never left Conte indifferent’ despite him being sacked in acrimonious fashion in the summer of 2018, after he had already returned to pre-season training.

The report states that ‘Conte’s desire is stay in Italy, but the Napoli and Milan tracks are cooling down’.

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‘The strategy for the future should be better’

Ahead of Chelsea’s clash with Tottenham on Thursday, Pochettino refused to blame his players for a disappointing season.

Pochettino said: “We took the risk when we arrived here. And now need to accept and we need try to be positive to help. Because if we want to be better we need to realise, be clever in the way we assess the things that we are doing, the plan.

“The strategy for the future should be better, and in our analysis try to be very clinical in our decisions for the future to help not to be in this situation in the future.

“I’m not going to blame the players. The circumstances are bigger than the performances of the players. We cannot blame young guys.

“After suffering some circumstances, you need to come here and fight against a team who is preparing to win the Premier League. That is why [we need to] be careful. We cannot be unfair with our players. Of course we are disappointed with the performance, but I am not going to use words that are unfair.”

READ MORE: Underwhelming contenders to replace Pochettino at Chelsea headed by struggling Brighton boss