Conte took over a side that had finished 10th the previous season and turned them into title winners and did it with little investment.
We resigned Luiz and was largely derided for that decision and week after week commentators and pundits were praying for him to make any sort of mistake so they could point out what a unreliable player he is. But Conte stuck him at the base of the back 3 and it covered all his weaknesses and played to all of his strengths.
Converted Victor Moses from being a less than average winger into the best fullback in the league. Bought in Marcos Alonso who had previously played for Sunderland and Bolton but with him and Moses completely shook up the way that 50% of teams in the Premier League viewed how they set up their teams each week.
And yet. even with all that good will in the bank we don't appear to have signed a single one of his preferred targets the following summer. He wanted Lukaku, Van Dijk, Oxlade-Chamberline, Nainggolan and we signed inferior players for every single one of those positions and had probably our worst ever transfer window.
Conte was by no means faultless but we royally f**ked up that summer and massively let down a coach that had worked a small miracle.
I know that what Conte did in his first season is very special and I was hoping that Conte wouldn't leave after the second season and the FA Cup victory, around that time I joined this place... But that doesn't mean that he had no responsibility in what happen that season.
We won the league, finished 10th, got Conte and won the league again. So it's not like we were top 10 for years till Conte suddenly won the league, we had the quality and that made the club probably less willing to invest a huge amount of money that Conte was demanding, because we just won the league but even so the club did respond in some ways to what Conte was asking. After all in the first season we didn't even play in Europe, Conte was using a lot of the same players and somehow nobody got injured so that's also a factor.
Did other managers demand the club to sign that much after winning the league? Lukaku would have cost at least 75m + addons because that's how much Man United paid, Van Dijk went to Liverpool for 75m in January which means for us in the summer he would have cost at least 80m. Chamberline + Nainggolan would have been around 70m together so in total those players would have cost the club over 220m + it was rumored that Conte wanted Alex Sandro as well if I remember correctly but there is no guarantee that such a transfer would have stopped Conte from complaining anyway.
The club didn't go for Lukaku but Conte got Morata and he was saying how Morata was ready to lead the line. He also had the signing of Michy from the previous year but wasn't using him in the second season and let him go on loan in January. Also in January the club signed Giroud as well, both of those players cost a similar amount as Lukaku so in terms of value Conte got more players to work with even when Morata wasn't as good as he should have been and that still wasn't enough for Conte, a smaller boost to the attack was also the signing of Barkley in January as well but that didn't matter either.
The club didn't sign Van Dijk but Rudiger and Zappacosta and Conte didn't want Zouma so he was loaned out. Then in January the club also signed Emerson after Conte was complaining. That's 3 players to work with for a long season instead of 1.
Bakayoko had over 2 tackles per game in France in over 30 matches played and in general a better rate of interceptions and clearances than Matic and he was also younger. Pretty sure the scouting team thought he would fit right in Conte's football and that can't be the mistake of Marina, she simply doesn't scout the players.
Let's also not forget that Drinkwater was a move after Conte didn't give a single thought about playing anyone from the academy, he wanted a proven player. Then Drinkwater got injured for the first two months and never really settled in the team. It's not like Oxlade-Chamberline did great for Liverpool either and from what I know Ninggolan has big problems with his attitude or something. There is no guarantee that Conte would have succeeded even if he got everything he wanted because suddenly the pressure was there and we were playing CL football again.
