Chelsea want to get rid of Conte and replace him with Maurizio Sarri.
Blues owner Roman Abramovich has got Sarri lined up and the former Napoli manager is expected to be announced as the new boss by this weekend.
But Conte seems determined to continue with life as normal and has spent the summer drawing up a pre-season training schedule.
That is according to the Times, who claim Conte is already at war with Chelsea officials over how to go about pre-season.
Acceding to the report, a member of Chelsea’s technical staff emailed players who have not been at the World Cup asking them to return to Cobham on Saturday and Sunday for fitness tests.
However, Conte has responded to this by insisting he remains in charge and does not want the players back until next Monday.
The stand-off is just another in the long list of wrangles between Conte and the club over the past 12 months.
The manager was unhappy last summer when Chelsea failed to land his priority transfer targets Romelu Lukaku and Alex Sandro after their Premier League title triumph.
And the Italian cut a disgruntled figure for much of the 2017/18 campaign.
Chelsea are yet to sign any new players this summer as the club strive to sort out their managerial situation before then moving for players.
But they are facing a race against time on that transfer front, with the market closing on August 9 – a day before the start of the new Premier League season.