Why Michy Batshuayi may still have a Chelsea future despite being sidelined by Antonio Conte

Michy Batshuayi is well down his manager’s pecking order when it comes to up-front options at Chelsea, as we have seen in recent weeks.

At West Ham, as Blues crashed to their first defeat in eight Premier League games, he lingered throughout on the bench. This despite Antonio Conte using a clearly out of sorts, and illness-depleted Alvaro Morata as his striker.

Chasing an equaliser for 84 minutes, the Italian's only truly forward move was to bring on Pedro for Tiemoue Bakayoko at half time. Things looked even worse for Batshuayi at Huddersfield, where Morata was left out of the 18, and Eden Hazard was picked as the centre-forward.

That most ubiquitous of hipster terms, the 'false nine' was deployed here: incorrectly, in this case, as there was nothing false about Hazard's attacking role. He deputised for Morata like-for-like: this was not a tweak to the system to accommodate his attacking prowess; but a tweak to Hazard's own role to fit into the much-rehearsed template.

Which was a pretty brutal public admission, from Conte, that he favoured playing a player out of position to the option of playing Batshuayi – whose 20-ish minute late cameo came after the game was won, and with a view to resting Hazard for the weekend.

And so to Saturday, and the visit of Southampton. Here, Mauricio Pellegrino's side proved to be incredibly compact and difficult to break down. Yet Conte again both started and persevered with Hazard as striker, leaving his official back-up man on the bench throughout.

Morata's late introduction seemed to indicate the short term personnel issues were over and Conte had ridden-out the absence of his main goalscorer, with barely a nod towards the £33m man on the sidelines.

Batshuayi's last start for Chelsea was in the unfamiliar setting of the development squad, who roundly battered MK Dons in the much derided Checkatrade Trophy at the beginning of this month. Some might take that posting as an insult, but Batshuayi seemed to enjoy the rare exposure as he scored twice the evening after his nine-minute walk-on part against Atletico Madrid.

You don't have to be a mind reader to know that Conte doesn't fancy the player as an option: in fact, he has been pretty open about saying how Batshuayi needs to develop and adapt more – both to the manager's own methods, and the Premier League's demands.

So is it all over for Batshuayi at Chelsea? Not necessarily. He would have gone on loan in the summer had a suitably able (and suitably priced) alternative presented himself to the club. Being behind Morata, Hazard and Pedro, and battling with Charly Musonda for the post of fourth choice up-front, such a deal will surely be done in January.

His main advocate, and the man who effectively signed him, is now no longer there to talk-up his case, Michael Emenalo having shifted his stock to Monaco. But there is one thing still working very hard in Batshuayi's favour, and that is his price tag.

The club will not want to lose cash on such a significant investment. And at present his potential transfer value cannot be especially high, even in this inflated market.

Other Emenalo buys who failed to acclimatise, such as Kevin de Bruyne and Romelu Lukaku, were parked elsewhere to see if they could (a) develop into the player the manager of the time needed, or (b) increase in value to move elsewhere. But, as we've seen with someone like Victor Moses, that doesn't always mean the latter.

Conte will not be Chelsea boss forever. The chances are he won't even be Chelsea boss next season.

And another manager may see Batshuayi differently.But, until then, the forward's chances at the club do look to be limited to late substitutions, and the odd run out in an unfashionable cup.