Sky Sports Pundit Believes Antonio Conte Won't Be Chelsea Boss Come End of the Season

Jamie Carragher has revealed that he would be "very surprised" if Antonio Conte is still in charge of Chelsea by the end of the 2017/18 campaign.

The Liverpool legend and Sky Sports pundit was extremely candid in his assessment of the Blues boss' chances of remaining at the helm when asked about his current situation at Stamford Bridge.

Speaking to Sky ahead of the new Premier League season about potential predictions and shocks, Carragher explained why Chelsea fans could be worried about Conte walking away or being sacked despite winning the top flight title in his maiden season in charge.

He said: "I'll be very surprised if I'm sitting here, in 12 months' time, and he's still the Chelsea manager.

"I think he's just the type of manager who won't accept the involvement of people above, especially on the back of winning the title.

"He's not going to go quietly - it's not great for your club when your manager is coming out and speaking the way that he is."

Conte had spoken of his frustrations at Chelsea's lack of movement in the transfer market before their captures of Antonio Rudiger, Tiemoue Bakayoko and Alvaro Morata this summer, with number one target Romelu Lukaku opting to move to Manchester United instead.

The 48-year-old, who was linked with taking over at Inter Milan late last term, did pen a new two-year deal with Chelsea in July in an apparent show of faith from the club's board.

Carragher, however, went on to state that Conte's opinionated stance over his team's problems - particularly those comments to the media - could spell trouble for him if the Blues have a less than impressive start to the new campaign.

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He added: "We had something similar at Liverpool with Rafael Benitez. There's managers like that.

"What I would say is that Chelsea have a business model - a ruthless one at that - and I don't think they value the manager like other clubs do. They're not scared to get rid of them and they have a big say in how that club's run.

"There's other people involved there and maybe that's a frustration for him, so I will be surprised if he's still there in 12 months."