Chelsea's Antonio Conte hints he had no say in Nemanja Matic Manchester United transfer

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Vaishali Bhardwaj4 August 2017

Antonio Conte has remained coy about why Chelsea sold Nemanja Matic to rivals Manchester United this summer, saying it is a question for the club to answer.

Matic completed a £40million move from the champions to Jose Mourinho's side in late July after the midfielder had been left out of Conte's squad for Chelsea's pre-season tour of the Far East.

Matic's place in the first-team next season would have been under threat from the arrival of Tiemoue Bakayoko from Monaco, but the decision to sell to a direct league rival was made all the more interesting considering Chelsea missed out on the signing of Romelu Lukaku to United earlier in the summer.

But when asked why Chelsea sold Matic to United this summer, Conte simply replied: "You must ask the club about this."

Matic made his United debut in the club's 2-1 friendly win over Sampdoria on Wednesday, playing the first 47 minutes of the match in Dublin.

Speaking about the 29-year-old's performance in the victory, Mourinho said: "A lonely pre-season is always a lonely pre-season – a player can be professional and work hard but football is collective and when you train alone, you train just a part of what you are as a player.

"The way he plays, he uses his brain but of course he needs physicality to be on top of his game. So he needs time but his experience, intelligence and genius in the way he thinks about football will help him to be ready sooner rather than later.

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"That’s why he coped well with 45 minutes today. He makes everything so simple and is fantastic in his position."

Matic also addressed the fact he did not have a normal pre-season training at Chelsea when he said: "It was strange [not playing in pre-season] because the team has played and had a good pre-season but, as you know, I trained alone in London."