How Antonio Conte's Chelsea could have looked with Virgil van Dijk & Romelu Lukaku

Antonio Conte's debut season at Chelsea was a memorable one. The Blues romped to the Premier League title, breaking the record for most wins in a single campaign after emerging victorious in 30 of their 38 games in 2016/17.

And yet, they could have been even better the following year had Conte had been handed his top transfer targets in 2017's summer window.

The boss has spoken openly over the past few years about how Chelsea met with Virgil van Dijk and Romelu Lukaku that summer, but neither deal ended up coming to fruition and Conte would find himself out of a job just 12 months later — a conclusion which would be tough to imagine if both Van Dijk and Lukaku had made the move to Stamford Bridge when he wanted them.

Here's how Conte's Chelsea could have looked in 2017/18 if he landed his men.

Courtois was an integral part of Chelsea's Premier League title success, with his 16 clean sheets firmly entering him into the conversation about the best goalkeeper on the planet.

He recorded 15 clean sheets in 2017/18 — a figure which would likely be higher with Van Dijk in front of him — before burning his bond with Chelsea fans by admitting his desire to return to Madrid and refusing to return for pre-season. Real Madrid would sign him soon after.

Chelsea's 2017 summer shopping spree is widely seen as one of the worst in history — £156m on Tiemoue Bakayoko, Danny Drinkwater, Davide Zappacosta and Alvaro Morata will do that to you — but the only player they struck gold on was Antonio Rudiger. However, the German would likely not have joined that summer had Van Dijk been given his spot first.

The switch to a three-man defence was pretty much the entire foundation of Chelsea's title success in 2016/17. On the right was Cesar