The Chelsea Club Thread **No Spoilers**

[Cosimo]

Wondering who Conte's staff are, well here they are:

Our new first team head coach has three assistant coaches: Angelo Alessio; Gianluca Conte and Steve Holland.

Alessio first linked up with Conte in a coaching capacity at Siena. They continued to work together at Juventus and with the Italy national side. As players they were team-mates in the Juventus midfield where they won the UEFA Cup and Coppa Italia.

Gianluca Conte is the younger brother of Antonio. They were both players at their home town club of Lecce and Gianluca has worked as an analyst with his brother at Bari, Juventus and with Italy. Steve Holland will continue in the role having worked with the first team since 2011.

The fitness coaches are Paolo Bertelli, Julio Tous and Chris Jones. Bertelli and Tous join Chelsea having held those positions in the Italy national set-up. Tous, a Spaniard, will also act as a performance analyst. Chris Jones has been with our first team squad since 2009. Costantino Coratti, who was also part of Conte’s staff during his two years as Italy manager, is our new assistant fitness coach.

Gianluca Spinelli joins as a goalkeeper coach. Prior to moving to Chelsea, he divided his time between coaching the goalkeepers in the Italy squad and at Genoa where he worked for 12 years. He will be assisted by Henrique Hilario.

Tiberio Ancora will act as a consultant personal trainer/nutritionist.

Our former keeper Carlo Cudicini now has a dual role. As well as a club ambassador, he will also be assistant to the first team head coach.

Not many old faces left.

 

[Cosimo]

A couple of Conte interviews:

The ESPN one with Gab Marcotti:

http://www.espnfc.com.au/chelsea/st...rebuild-chelsea-from-a-very-strange-situation

 

[Cosimo]

Today's post match presser:

 

[Cosimo]

Mikel donates $30k to Nigeria’s Olympic Team:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...nigerian-olympic-team-ahead-of-2016-rio-games

 

[Tummy]

Quite looking forward to seeing Conte in the Premier League. I think he is going to bring a lot of fireworks to the sidelines, I can see a big firework display between him and Big Sam

Think he is an excellent manager, after the rule changes this year and the clamp down on abuse towards officials though all managers need to be extra careful.

 

[Newbfail]

side-lines are going to be just as interesting this season as what is going on the pitch.

conte, pep, mou, klopp, wenger..........should be interesting

 

[Cosimo]

Meet Kante:

 

[Cosimo]

Did anyone go to one of our pre-season games?

 

[Cosimo]

Very good piece about Antonio Conte:

http://twentyminutereads.com/2016/08/09/the-hammer/

Looking forward to him sorting us out!

 

[Newbfail]

Do you guys feel your squad is missing anything? Defenders?

 

[Cosimo]

Conte bans tomato ketchup (Times):

Antonio Conte has banned his players from consuming pizza, fizzy drinks, tomato ketchup and brown sauce as part of an overhaul of Chelsea’s nutritional and fitness regime. Conte’s players will return to the club’s training ground after three weeks on tour today to discover that all fizzy drinks and sauces have been removed from the staff canteen, while the post-match pizzas that were permitted by previous management regimes have also been discontinued by the new manager.

Conte views nutrition as a key of his training regime and has opted to remove products that he considers to have no dietary benefit to his players. Salt and pepper will remain on the tables at Chelsea’s Cobham headquarters for those players wishing to add extra seasoning to their food, although vinegar has been replaced by balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

The bulk of the food prepared for Chelsea’s players remains largely the same, although Conte has made one significant change in insisting on a lighter pre-match meal than his pre- decessors, while a greater emphasis is now placed on providing high quality protein and fats in preference to refined carbohydrates. A brunch-type offering featuring cereals, eggs and pasta has been replaced by a more limited and restricted serving of chicken and salad as Conte believes his players had been going out on to the field feeling unnecessarily bloated.

Conte’s nutritional changes are part of a plan to improve his squad’s fitness and despite the increased workload there have been no complaints from the players, with several reporting for pre-season training significantly lighter. Double and triple training sessions were commonplace throughout pre-season and Chelsea trained twice at Stamford Bridge yesterday as they prepare for their opening Premier League fixture against West Ham United on Monday.

 

[Cosimo]

Do you guys feel your squad is missing anything? Defenders?

Certainly need to strengthen defensively so we could do with a new centre back. Hopefully Koulibaly will be sorted by the end of the week. We also need Kurt Zouma to return from his long injury. The rest of the squad is fine for the time being and we'll see how it develops with Conte over the next few months.

 

[Tummy]

Zouma is the future , hopefully he comes back and can regain his form. Excellent young defender. Would have loved to see him play alongside Sakho/Umitti at club level.

 

[Cosimo]

First post match presser:

 

[JohnnyG]

His celebration of Costa's winner last night was awesome

 

[Newbfail]

he was super passionate as a player, the sidelines in the EPL are going to be seriously entertaining this season with Conte giving out hugs and Klopp piggy backs.

 

[Cosimo]

His celebration of Costa's winner last night was awesome

He'll get an award that's for sure.

 

[Tummy]

Love Costa at times: go studs up in to a goalkeeper, while on a yellow card, not sent off and complains about being unfairly treated .

 

[Cosimo]

Watford presser:

 

[Cosimo]

Conte, a happy winner (large gif):

Spoiler