Chelsea working on Conte ‘solution’; meeting with Sarri entourage — reports

Reports this morning from Italy paint a largely unchanged picture in Sarri-land. The (former?) Napoli manager continues to be employed by the team that hired Carlo Ancelotti to replace him, and what may be next for him remains shrouded in mystery and uncertainty.

Not even the Italian transfer oracle, Gianluca Di Marzio, seems to really know how all this may turn out just yet. He also says that it would take Chelsea €20m to sack Conte, which is roughly twice the number others have said all along. Chelsea may or may not have spent all day Wednesday trying to figure out a “solution” to the Conte situation, whatever that means.

Meanwhile, there is supposed to be a meeting between Chelsea and Sarri today, which Di Marzio confirms, though Sarri himself is not expected to be there (just his “entourage”). There is also Zenit St. Petersburg, who remain interested (and remain the only team to actually offer Sarri a contract) and less trustworthy reports in Italy are also saying that Udinese may be a fallback option, too.

As per more recent Twitterings, said meeting got underway around noon, local time.

Yesterday, the Telegraph claimed that Sarri has impressed but not quite convinced the Chelsea hierarchy yet, and that is echoed by the Standard this morning. Sarri himself appears to want the Chelsea job and he certainly has a lot of fans and admirers, but this is still far from a foregone conclusion as far as the Blues are concerned.