Catalan newspaper Sport today have claims on Chelsea’s managerial situation.
It’s stated Leonardo Jardim is now the favourite and Luis Enrique has been ‘discarded’. That’s because Roman Abramovich has failed to come to an agreement with the former Barcelona manager.
‘The demands of Luis Enrique have not convinced Marina Granoskaia’, say Sport, and Chelsea’s Russian owner has subsequently decided Jardim is the man.
Chelsea have ‘already started negotiations’ with both Jardim and Monaco, whilst Abramovich is said to have contacted the Ligue 1 club’s owner Dmitri Rybolovlev.
Marca, meanwhile, say Chelsea were put off Enrique because of his ‘arrogance’.
Having a dig through what else has been said about Jardim, on April 17th we covered claims that Monaco were interested in Paulo Fonseca (who has now renewed with Shakhtar) because they feared losing Jardim.
Maurizio Sarri was also an option. No offer had been made for the Italian, either by Chelsea or Monaco, and we suggested perhaps Sarri staying at Napoli was more likely than some were suggesting.
As for Jardim, Monaco were fearful because of interest from China, not Chelsea.
Fast-forward to May 10th, and claims came from France that Chelsea are interested in Jardim, but not hugely so. He was an option as Abramovich decided what to do, still not entirely convinced he wanted to pay Antonio Conte a big chunk of compensation.
If that was true, and Chelsea have now made their mind up about that, then it would make sense to bring Jardim into the picture.
It’s a very tangled web.
At this point we’re not entirely sure even Chelsea know who they want, when they want to sack Conte and what the next step is. But, Abramovich contacting Rybolovlev makes some sense, even if just to test the water whilst discussing other Oligarch things.
