Old news in a new format I suppose, but today sees the Evening Standard reporting that the talented, yet unwanted, quartet of Harry Winks, Giovani Lo Celso, Tanguy N’dombele, and Sergio Reguilon have been told to stay away from first-team training by Antonio Conte. According to the report, they have “been told the head coach can only work with a certain number of players.”
It’s been pretty clear for a while that the quartet do not have a future at the club – the writing has been on the wall for N’dombele and Lo Celso since they went out on loan last season (in all likelihood, even before this), whilst Winks and Reguilon just don’t fit into Conte’s plans. The group’s exclusion from the South Korea trip was unofficial confirmation that there is no way back for them in Conte’s plans, and now it’s a case of waiting until reasonable offers come in for them.
This has proven to be difficult to say the least – the clubs that have been interested in Lo Celso ostensibly prefer another loan with options to buy, whilst we prefer obligations if we cannot sell him permanently. Nobody is expressing serious interest in N’dombele, whilst a similar situation is occurring with Winks and Reguilon, whose potential suitors again are preferring loans with less risky options rather than obligations to buy, which, of course, is about as useful for us tackling a bowl of soup with a pair of chopsticks! The wait to offload the foursome continues…