Antonio Conte responds to latest Alexis Sánchez speculation

If you thought Chelsea head coach Antonio Conte would have anything substantive to say about any real, unreal or surreal Chelsea transfer rumor, you have clearly not been paying attention these last 18 months. Conte never talks about transfers beyond platitudes and vagaries and reminding people that he doesn’t make the decisions, he just talks with the club. If he ever talks about another team’s player, it’s in broad, positive generalities. Never anything specific and certainly nothing that could immediately and obviously be construed as any sort of confirmation of anything going on.

And so, when he was asked about the Alexis Sanchez situation in Tuesday’s pre-match press conference, he responded the only way he ever would. Of course, in this case, it’s probably also the only way he ever could, since this rumor was a long-shot from the very beginning and was likely nothing more than agent shenanigans from the soon-to-be former Arsenal man.

“I don’t know, I don’t think so. About the transfer market I prefer to talk to the club and give an opinion and I repeat I don’t want to give my opinion on that.”

-Antonio Conte; source: Mirror

While Conte did sort of hint at Batshuayi possibly leaving in the future (but certainly not before tomorrow’s game), any actual movement from Chelsea on the Alexis front would be very surprising.