Petulant Antonio Conte no longer striking right tone for Chelsea fans

The former Chelsea-boss, a man who shall remain nameless, had a small selection of reporters captive in the corridor of a Midlands football stadium post-match.

“Turn off your machines,” he demanded, pointing at our recording devices, and we duly obliged, wondering what was coming next.

“You know what the problem is with my strikers?” he begged. “They're all f***ing s**t.”

As a statement of dissatisfaction with one's players, it was a pretty direct one.

But, crucially, it was off the record – unattributable, and never to be revealed just who was saying it, about which failing players.

That ex-manager followed a code back then, which the soon-to-be next ex-Chelsea manager broke at the City of Manchester Stadium on Sunday.

There Antonio bawled out his strikers in public.

He did it without words: though, Lord knows, Conte hasn't been short of criticism for his off-target target-men this campaign.

But he did it with actions so loud, that he barely needed to voice them.

Choosing Eden Hazard as 'false' nine he sent a message about his lack of belief in the alternative options.

Then, a goal down and apparently chasing nothing more than damage limitation, he refused to introduce a striker until the game was done: first Olivier Giroud on 78 minutes, then (in a snub so loud as to be deafening) Alvaro Morata on 90.

The line about a bad workman blaming his tools is not always true in football.

But if you're actually going to down tools, as Conte did here, then one wonders what could be the best expectations to arise from that.

Conte isn't happy - that much is evident.

But if, as he keeps trying to dictate, we are to accept a narrative of him being starved of the talent he so desires; then we must ignore the facts that both Chelsea's record signing, and the stopgap January buy to cover for him, were both indisputably his choice.

This season, Conte has tried to play the game played by so many of his predecessors.

He has attempted to manage upwardly: sending messages to his seniors out of a desire to get the players he wants.

The thing is that he has, with the caveat of avoiding crazy spending, got those players.

This side is not some ramshackle assemblance by unelected committee: it is his side.

And, in recent games, he has refused to use it.

Plenty of other Chelsea bosses have found themselves without the Premier League's, or Europe's, best striker of the moment.

But they have tended to make the situation work for themselves, and for their club.

Conte right now appears as the petulant child who wanted a games console for his birthday, but then threw a tantrum when it arrived in the wrong coloured wrapping paper.

He achieved wonderful, unpredictable, remarkable things with Chelsea last season.

But his self-confessed refusal to even try to win at Manchester City, with a plan that included none of his strikers until it was far too late, has lessened his standing greatly in the eyes of many supporters.

Chelsea likes a tryer.

And it likes a manager who works with what he has to achieve the best he can. Ironically, this being very reason for Conte's cult status last season, and for his ultimate downfall too.

Once his days are up, at a point not too far from here, a successor will be given a chance to make an impression.

And, likely as not, he will live and die by the success or otherwise of the goalscorers in his side.

But, whatever his concerns in this area, he'd do well to not air such grievances in front of the paying public.

For, while the shelf-life of a Chelsea striker is often short; the tenure of his many managers tends to me much more limited than that.