Chelsea were a very sexy Premier League title pick this summer. While Manchester City were the consensus favorites, with Manchester United mostly picked to finish second, Chelsea kept showing up third in a lot of preseason prognosticators picks. A whole lot of people saw Chelsea finishing in third place, or at least somewhere in the top four.
Now it’s very early in the season, and there’s a long way to go, but the Blues aren’t living up to their hype thus far.
So says Chelsea Manager Antonio Conte.
“What happened? I think from the first minute we didn’t have the right attitude,” Conte told BT Sport after his side got demolished by their London arch-rivals Arsenal 3-0 today.
“I think we played a bad game against a tough team, very organised, very prepared in the tactical physical aspect.
“I think that after today we are thinking that we must work a lot, because now we are a great team only on paper.”
“I don’t want to talk about the mistakes because it’s not right for the player,” Conte said. “We win as a team, we lose as a team. We know we must work a lot and if someone thinks this team now is ready to fight, I think we must wait and work to improve a lot and to come back a great team not only on paper, but on the pitch.”
Conte also said that he’s literally losing sleep over the issues he’s had with this team.
Chelsea began the season looking like world-beaters, they took all three points from all of their first three matches. However, since then both Liverpool and Arsenal exposed the major issue that we all saw all summer in the preseason exhibition friendlies- that back line.
Central Defender Gary Cahill in particular, was ripped apart today on social media. Conte will not stand for singling out any one individual player however. When asked about his big name stars, Diego Costa and Eden Hazard, and their failure to make a positive impact, he said:
“I think it’s always a team problem, not an individual player.”
“If the team works, the individual players play a good game. When nothing works, it’s very difficult for individual players to play a good game.”
With 10 points on the season, Chelsea are now in eighth place in the Premier League table’ or pretty much right back where they were last season.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.
He also consistently appears on numerous radio and television talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram and Sound Cloud.