Antonio Conte turns down Neymar ‘gift’ from Abramovich

It’s hard to imagine a manager turning down the offer of a player of Neymar’s quaity, but according to Italian paper Tuttosport, quoted by SportWitness, that’s exactly what Antonio Conte has done.

According to the Italian press, Conte has not been happy with the club’s transfer dealings since arriving in the summer. It’s hard to deny that Conte probably hasn’t been backed as much as he would like – apart from N’Golo Kante most of the signings have not been first choice targets, and in January the club let several first team players go without replacing them.

Roman Abramovich then apparently took his chosen manager out for dinner recently and promised that he would deliver him Neymar in the summer, telling Conte “I’ll give you Neymar as a present”.

Conte then apparently declined and said he would rather have 3 or 4 players to improve the overall squad in preparation for the return to Europe next season.

Tuttosport are painting this as a rift between manager and owner, but there doesn’t seem to be any evidence for this beyond the idea that Roman might be offended by his “gift” being rejected.

Let’s all hope the big man isn’t that petty.

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