Antonio Conte has suffered a blow as last year’s player of the season, Willian, is set to miss Saturday lunchtime’s clash with Leicester City after the devastating death of his mother, claim the Daily Mail. After a two and a half year battle with cancer, his mother passed away on Thursday and the Brazilian, who dedicated his goal for the national team on Tuesday to her, has been granted compassionate leave to remain in Brazil with his family over the weekend.
It means that Conte will have to tinker with his side in the absence of the 28-year-old, with Pedro the most likely replacement for the playmaker on the right side of attack. The Blues will take on the reigning Premier League champions this weekend and will be hoping that they won’t miss Willian too much in attack.
Spanish newspaper Sport claim that Jose Mourinho made an audacious attempt to sign Barcelona star Neymar for Chelsea while the Brazilian was still at Santos, and whilst Mourinho was still Real Madrid manager. They claim that Mourinho’s relationship with president Florentino Perez had completely broken down having already agreed to move to Stamford Bridge and the Portuguese manager made contact to try to launch a move for the attacker.
Unfortunately for the Blues, Neymar has already agreed a move to Barcelona by that point in time, but it speaks volumes of the ambition that Mourinho and the club were showing. The left sided forward was again linked with Mourinho this summer at Manchester United, but it is believed that he once again rejected the man who has had two spells in charge of the Blues.
Reports in the Sun suggest that a current Chelsea forward, Michy Batshuayi, has made it clear to Antonio Conte and club bosses that he will reject any moves for him to move elsewhere after only a few months at the club. With very few minutes under his belt in Chelsea colours, speculation suggested that Conte was not keen on the Belgian and a move back to Marseille or to AC Milan could be on the cards in January.
However, the 23-year-old has declared that he will stay and fight for his place at Chelsea as he competes with the in form Diego Costa for a starting place. It may just take a lucky break to see Batshuayi get into the line-up, having impressed when coming on as a substitute and in cup competitions, but he is yet to have the opportunity to really prove himself at Stamford Bridge.
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