Even after Antonio Conte led Chelsea to the Premier League title last season, the speculation that he'd be returning to Serie A at some point in the not so distant future has never gone away.
The Blues manager does return to his native land on Tuesday night, albeit on a temporary mission to try and set up a Chelsea win away at AS Roma.
But on that wider question of when Conte will decide to return to Italy permanently was something we discussed with BT Sport and ESPN Italian football journalist James Horncastle who joined us on our first ever OTB AM morning show.
"Conte is a legend at Juventus, both as a player and as a manager but the way he left the club in the lurch in 2014 did not go down well with Andrea Agnelli the president," he said of the sniping that has taken place between the Juve hierarchy and their former manager of late - which leaves the door open for a return to another club and AC Milan are the biggest one with a huge question mark over their manager and a heavily funded project to go with it.
"Conte is loved and respected to incredible levels in Italy. It wasn't just what he achieved as a manager," said Horncastle.
"He seems a guarantee of success. We saw that happen at Chelsea last year. There is this real love towards Antonio Conte and they would love to see him back and in many respects, he would be the perfect manager to relaunch AC Milan because they are a team really built in his image. They play the same system that he likes to play and they've got one of his favourite players in Leonardo Bonucci and I think that's one of the reasons why there has been a stay on execution while they're biding their time and showing patience towards Vincenzo Montella the current coach."
You can watch the maiden episode of OTB AM via our Facebook Live player below, including ex-Meath footballer Anthony Moyles on the GAA Club Championships, a review of the sports pages as well as discussions around the latest NFL news and Mo Farah:
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