Jose Mourinho’s shadow no longer looms – transformative Antonio Conte has ripped up the Chelsea script

Two months ago, Chelsea looked like Portuguese manager’s team. Now, they look Italian successor’s side, complete with new system and different personnel, writes Richard Jolly.

Antonio Conte applauds the crowd after Chelsea's 1-0 victory at Middlesbrough sent his side to the top of the Premier League table. Ian MacNicol / Getty Images

Jose Mourinho tends to cast a long shadow. Just ask Avram Grant, Luiz Felipe Scolari, Guus Hiddink, Carlo Ancelotti, Andre Villas-Boas, Roberto di Matteo and Rafa Benitez.

Their reigns at Stamford Bridge tend to be viewed in the context of his. Some built theirs around Mourinho’s devotees. Others tried to move on and discovered the foundations the Portuguese had laid were too deep.

It took Mourinho to finally break up his first Chelsea team, to produce a side without Ashley Cole, Frank Lampard and Petr Cech and to oversee their departures, along with that of the returning Didier Drogba.

So when Antonio Conte arrived in London and began the season with 10 of Mourinho’s players in the starting XI, history seemed set to repeat itself. The spectre of Chelsea’s most successful manager would loom large for another few years. The squad would continue to be dominated by strong-minded individuals who would see off a series of managers. The script was already written.

And then it was ripped up. Two months ago, Chelsea looked like Mourinho’s team, with many of the problems that were apparent last year. Now, they look Conte’s side, complete with a new system and different personnel but minus some of the men indelibly associated with Mourinho.

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Their second break-up with Mourinho was not as painful as the first, the fractures in the relationship far more apparent, but now they have moved on, and in double-quick time. Conte’s Chelsea are powered by N’Golo Kante, the first significant signing since Mourinho’s dismissal, epitomised by Victor Moses, who was loaned out in three successive seasons by the Portuguese, and lent unexpected solidity by David Luiz, who he sold. They are given incision and invention by Diego Costa and Eden Hazard, two who appeared most disenchanted with Mourinho.

And those left on the outside looking in include five of Mourinho’s men. When John Terry was belatedly given a new contract in May, it felt that, just as it did after Benitez tried to phase him out, there was something inescapable about the captain remaining a mainstay of the starting side. Instead, injury cost him his spot, but a lack of pace means he can only occupy one position in Conte’s 3-4-2-1 system: the one Luiz has made his own, using his passing range to act as a playmaker at the back.

Branislav Ivanovic seemed curiously undroppable in an awful autumn last year. Conte found it easier to omit the Serb: even if the right-sided centre-back role might have appeared ideal for him, he instead shifted Cesar Azpilicueta across. Moses has been such a dynamic wing-back it is hard to imagine Ivanovic as an alternative. The vice-captain has joined the captain on the bench.

Cesc Fabregas was the inadvertent pioneer, the first of the pillars of Mourinho’s Chelsea to be dropped. The Spaniard’s recall lasted 55 minutes at Arsenal. There seems no comeback. Fabregas cannot rival the power game of Kante and Nemanja Matic and does not offer the movement of Hazard and Pedro in the more advanced roles.

Oscar’s deteriorating fortunes have been obscured by his capacity for anonymity which, in itself, represented grounds for demotion. The Brazilian was Mourinho’s tackling No 10, the man he preferred to Juan Mata and Kevin de Bruyne, a decision that looks more misguided by the week. Oscar flattered to deceive for too long.

Willian was perhaps his antithesis, the deserving overachiever who was Chelsea’s player of last season. He is the most unfortunate, losing his place due to a mixture of bereavement and injury, but also the likeliest to be restored to the team should either Moses or Pedro be absent.

With Chelsea top of the league, four of the downgraded five have few grounds for complaint. If it all indicates Mourinho’s second Chelsea side were not of the calibre of the first, lacking the staying power, the resilience or the ability to define a generation, perhaps their reinvention also indicates that Conte is more of a transformative manager — in the right sense — than any of the Portuguese’s previous successors.

Because, finally, they have entered the post-Mourinho era.

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