Photo: Chelsea FC

The success of a coach is measured by the success of the team he manages. If his team does well, he earns himself praise. And if it doesn’t, he only attracts negative criticism.

Conte did the difficult last season, when he immediately won us the title in his first season in charge. And as is mostly the case, everyone expected that he’d build on that success, and move Chelsea forward in our quest to remain the most dominant force in English football. While you wouldn’t out-rightly rule his season as an utter failure yet, it wouldn’t be out of place to score him very low performance wise.

Out of all the competitions we have partaken in thus far this season, we have just the FA Cup as our only realistic chance at some silverware. Even that is not guaranteed – not with the level of confidence in the team at the moment. It is at an all time low, and it could get worse if things don’t change soon.

Arsenal knocked us out of the Carabao Cup, Barcelona did some numbers on us on Wednesday, thus ending our dreams of progressing in the competition, and the EPL is looking tougher than ever, with the race for the top 4 looking lost by each game. If we lost 2 more games, we might as well wave a top 4 finish goodbye. And what a catastrophe that would be – the current title holders failing to finish in the top 4; for a second time in 3 seasons.

In the Chelsea of the old, Conte would probably be a goner by now, but Roman Abramovich seems a more trusting and relaxed figure, and is probably giving Conte the benefit of doubt. But whether or not he is our coach by the start of 2018/19 would depend largely on how he finishes this season. If Chelsea makes the top 4, he might be staying. However, two more losses from the remaining games may be the end of the Italian tactician.

So things do look terrible for Conte, but from over here where I stand, he still has a chance of salvaging what is left of his Chelsea career.