Chelsea triumphed with instability but Manchester City may have destroyed their playbook with Pep Guardiola

Antonio Conte will quit Chelsea to take charge of Paris Saint-Germain next season, it is believed in Italy.

So says the football grapevine in Conte’s homeland once again this week with some conviction. And, given his unhappy demeanour around Stamford Bridge this season, who’s to say the idea doesn’t seem highly feasible?

It is not as if he seems highly enamoured of the transfer business they are attempting to pull off in this current window. Nor with the £185 million worth of purchases they made last summer, either.

So a parting of the ways this May, only a year after Conte won the Premier League, is certainly plausible. It’s the way of modern football, anyway. It’s been a merry-go-round out there in recent years for the top bosses and Conte is now along for the ride, alongside Jose Mourinho, Pep Guardiola, Carlo Ancelotti and the rest of the gang.

It’s not as if Chelsea don’t change managers as often as they amend the design of their strip, either. Only, this time around, it looks like it will be the coach who makes the decision as well as Roman Abramovich.

Is it right for Chelsea to face another managerial change, however, in the new era in which Manchester City and Pep Guardiola appear to be establishing what could be a dynastic command of the English game? Or do they need a new model if they are to compete during the next five years or so.

Against all perceived wisdom, they have done extremely well during Abramovich’s ownership of the club by hiring and firing at high speed.

All the while that they faced demands from the critics – myself included - for more stability, loyalty and certainty, the trophies poured in to west London, including the Champions League, the Europa League and four league titles.

Even Conte’s arrival in 2016 prompted an instant recovery from the slump to 10th place created by the departure of Mourinho in the previous season.

It looks like it may turn out to have been another quick fix when the desire within the boardroom has for some time been for less turbulence. Remember how Mourinho said that this time he and the club were in it for the long haul when he returned in 2013?

But if Conte does depart this summer, he’ll always be noted for the emphatic and dominant nature of the title triumph of 2016-17 in which he restored the club to the elite.

So instability did very nicely for Abramovich, thank you very much.

This season, though, the landscape has changed dramatically.

In Guardiola’s second season at the Etihad, the combination of his vision and coaching skills and Manchester City’s wealth has clicked fully into gear.

Backed by a phalanx of directors, coaches and technical staff steeped in the ways of his former club Barcelona, Guardiola is now putting into place what look ominously like the kind of grip on the game he established at Camp Nou.

And if the aim is to win at least two Champions Leagues like he did at Barcelona, it means he is going to be around for quite some time.

Manchester United believe the answer to this is to fight City in the transfer market – the gazumping of Guardiola’s move for Alexis Sanchez proving that – and to hand Mourinho a contract extension to ensure they have a long-term plan at work.

Similarly, Liverpool want Jurgen Klopp to have something matching the seven-year reigns he had at Mainz and Borussia Dortmund.

This is what Chelsea hoped for with their last two managerial appointments. In the event, however, neither inspired any idea of permanence.

Even so, this idea must be at the forefront of their thinking if they have to replace Conte this summer, with Juventus’s Max Allegri and Maurizio Sarri of Napoli among the potential contenders.

This might take some delicacy. The club are determined to have more control over transfer policy than the coach. This is said to be one of the major causes of Conte’s unsettlement. But if this is to be the way ahead, then than any new manager will have to buy into the idea – and stick with it.

It is the European way, of course. And it does promote stability behind the scenes because coaches come and go. But that hasn’t made Conte any happier with this way of doing things.

A new man must be more in tune with this policy. Certainly, he mustn’t gripe about it publicly. And in return, the hierarchy will surely have to understand that it will take time to match what City have created – and back the next manager with more long-term thinking than they have shown in the past.

In fairness, Chelsea have tried to follow this path. But the recent reigns of Mourinho and Conte have thwarted the plan. Next time around, they have to make it work.

Otherwise, they’ll never catch up with City and Guardiola. That is English and European football’s new reality.