Antonio Conte has known he would not be Chelsea’s head coach next season from the moment he returned to the away dressing room at Vicarage Road on February 5, with the only surprise being that it has taken the club so long to put him out of his misery.

Indeed, Conte was so convinced that he would be sacked the morning after that 4-1 defeat away to Watford, which followed a 3-0 home loss to Bournemouth, that he took the out-of-character decision to give Chelsea’s players three days off, as he did not want them to be around to witness his humiliating dismissal.

Beyond the £9 million payoff, the only silver lining for Conte at having the termination of his contract delayed for six months was that the majority of his squad were absent after World Cup duty when he was finally given the news that they had all long expected after training yesterday. Some of those present, however — particularly David Luíz and Álvaro Morata — will have struggled for sincerity when offering their sympathies.

Conte’s fatalistic and flawed reasoning when boarding the team bus after that hammering at Watford encapsulated the mentality that undermined Chelsea’s Premier League title defence last season, and has left him out of work one month before the start of the next campaign.

The Italian has been feuding with Chelsea’s hierarchy since his failed power grab last summer and, as the season wore on, he also increasingly fell out with the players, who tired of his relentless demands and grew fed up of hearing via the media that the head coach did not consider them to be good enough.

A man revered by players and fans just a few months before, after unexpectedly delivering the title in his first season, managed to alienate both as a result of his intensity and stubbornness, which to them increasingly came across as straightforward negativity.

It is instructive that long-serving stalwarts at Chelsea’s training ground at Cobham came to treat Conte during his second season with greater trepidation than José Mourinho, who was hardly known for his lightness of touch in difficult periods. An attempt at exchanging pleasantries or even saying hello by a junior member of the administrative staff in the canteen could lead to them being monstered by Conte, to the extent that many staff began to only approach the coffee machine when the players were out training.

A source familiar with both men during their time with Chelsea explained that Mourinho knew when to turn down his natural aggression, but Conte never did.

Chelsea’s board discovered that to its cost last summer, when, after rejecting his plea for greater control, it was bombarded by text messages and emails demanding transfer updates while Conte was on holiday in southern Italy.

Michael Emenalo, the technical director, bore the brunt of it, but, being a natural diplomat, he remained an ally and it was a blow to Conte when the Nigerian left Chelsea suddenly in November, eventually going on to take up a similar position with Monaco.

Much of Conte’s unhappiness was focused on Marina Granovskaia, a director and Roman Abramovich’s closest aide, who has been hugely influential for several years and since Emenalo’s departure has been left in sole charge of the football side of the business. Sources report that Conte was unimpressed by Granovskaia’s dealings — which clashes with the testimonies of others in the game who say that she is widely respected by agents and rival clubs — while one even claims that he never came to terms with having to report to a woman.

Conte blamed Granovskaia for Chelsea’s failure to sign his key targets Leonardo Bonucci and Fernando Llorente last summer — making similar complaints when Alexis Sánchez and Alex Sandro were not recruited in January — and their relationship never recovered. The 48-year-old’s contempt for Granovskaia was such that, for the second half of last season, they often communicated through Carlo Cudicini, an assistant coach and club ambassador.

After an away game towards the end of the January transfer window Conte is understood to have taken Cudicini to task over Granovskaia’s handling of transfer business and sent him away with a pointed message for his boss, while it became a standing joke at the training ground that the former Chelsea goalkeeper was a brave man for sitting at the head coach’s table during lunch. It may not be a coincidence that Cudicini was a notable absentee from the “Team Conte” photograph of the coaching staff that was posted on Instagram by his brother, Daniele, when they returned to training last weekend.

There were other issues between Conte and Chelsea as their relationship deteriorated — his apparent reluctance to do promotional work for the club was a source of tension — but, like many divorces their parting was ultimately down to irreconcilable differences.

With hindsight both parties could be accused of failing to conduct proper due diligence, as Conte was never going to gain control of transfers at Chelsea, who should have known from his time at Juventus that for all his talent he is very high maintenance, but a short-term union may have suited them both.

The only remaining mystery is why it has taken Chelsea so long to deliver a decision that has been known about for at least six months, particularly the manner in which they have dragged their feet during the close season.

Conte heard nothing after winning the FA Cup in May throughout the summer and even yesterday’s meeting was convened at short notice, 55 days after that Wembley triumph, leading him to speculate that the club were intent on revenge after he gave them the silent treatment for a period last summer. The silence from west London was deafening last night, with Chelsea still to confirm Conte’s dismissal hours after it became public knowledge. They eventually did so this morning.