Chelsea defender, Abdul Rahman Baba has come out to say that Antonio Conte made his lose his footballing confidence.He recently revealed that he left the London club because he didn’t get on well with the Italian.
According to him, Conte complained a lot about him in training and he eventually had to meet the Sporting Director to voice out his frustrations with the manager.
Baba added that Mikel Obi tried to advice him to ignore Conte and focus on his football but he already had enough.
His words, “I left Chelsea because I didn’t get on well with Conte. When he arrived I had a first meeting with him before the season ended.”
“He told me how he wanted to play and how I can be in the team if I decide to stay. So I said okay that’s fine. When we went on vacation and came back, he was at the Euros [with Italy] so we started the pre-season and then he came to join us.”
“And during the pre-season I didn’t like the way he was reacting toward me. So I went to speak to the sporting director and I told him my worries.”
“I told him this is what is happening in training and I don’t have confidence anymore and if I stay here I will not be confident enough to show my qualities.”
“The first meeting, he [Conte] told me to just keep calm and keep working hard so I said that’s fine. This was in London and then we went to Austria and it started getting worse and that’s when I said no, I can’t take it anymore.”
“I don’t know, maybe my name was easy on his tongue, like every small thing was like ‘Baba’ ‘Baba’ and most of the players came to ask me what’s going on and I said I don’t know.”
“[John] Mikel Obi told me to just stay and shouldn’t bother what [Conte] is doing, but as young as I was , I was not taking it lightly so when we went to Austria I spoke to the Sporting Director and told him [that] it is going overboard and I can’t take it.”
“So they told me okay, so what do you want to do? I told them I would prefer to leave and they said no the club doesn’t want to sell me. So I said okay, if that’s so then I would prefer to go on loan from here.”
“The then coach of Schalke 04 was my former coach in Augsburg so he called me and told me, Baba you know if you are not feeling good at Chelsea, you know I’m here to help you. I’m in Schalke now so if you want to come that’s fine.”
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