Antonio Conte has warned there can be no quick fix to solve Chelsea’s underlying problems this season and stressed the need for patience in a series of face-to-face meetings with the owner, Roman Abramovich, at the club’s base in Cobham.
Abramovich was present to watch the first team train three times this week, meeting Conte over lunch in the facility’s canteen on each occasion to discuss the manager’s plans to revive a flagging side. The owner, who has made 11 managerial changes in 13 years, remains supportive of the Italian and sympathetic as to the scale of the task, exposed by defeats by Liverpool and Arsenal in their past two Premier League matches.
There is a willingness to fund significant purchases in future transfer windows, as well as to move on those senior players who have underachieved over the last 14 months but Conte, who has practised with a back three in training this week, is painfully realistic about the need for time to work on improving the current crop.
“It’s not a surprise,” he said when asked whether he had anticipated that the team might toil after his appointment in July. “Usually, when you change manager, it means you have a problem. So, when you arrive at the place who called you to solve their problems, you know you must face this situation.
“Sometimes you can be happy and solve the situation very quickly. Sometimes you need to have time to solve the situation. It’s important to understand how many problems you find when you arrive in a new team.
“In my life my story shows that I haven’t ever found an easy situation [when I’ve come in]. Even so, there was an expectation to improve on last season. That was my expectation too. But my experience, as a footballer and a manager, tells me to have a bit of patience to continue to work, to improve, to find the right way and solve things. It won’t be easy. It’s normal but I’m confident. I have a group of players who want to work and show the right commitment.”
Conte would appear to have faced similar issues when he returned to Juventus, where his career as a player had flourished, as manager in 2011. He had inherited a squad who had finished seventh in successive campaigns and famously, on his first day in charge, assembled his new players to deliver the succinct message: “Lads, it’s time we stopped being shit.”
Conte vented his anger at his Chelsea team at half-time at the Emirates Stadium last Saturday, when the visitors already trailed 3-0, with his frustration born partly out of the fact he considers this group more talented than the side he took over in Turin.
“Juventus, for two years, had finished seventh and the value of the players is not the same,” he said. “The talent that there is now in our team, at Chelsea, for sure is more than Juventus in my first season. But, also, we must understand that you don’t win just with talent. With talent you must add running, intensity, sacrifice, wanting to win the ball when you lose it … all of this. We are working very hard on these aspects to improve them. It’s important to understand and find very quickly the right way.
“If we think we can solve this situation without work, because we have a magician [in charge] … well, it’s not my habit to hope to improve the situation without work. I think the situation we can improve only with work, with great work. We are doing this. In these two months we are doing this. Slowly, slowly, we are understanding this. I’m confident I have a group of players who have great commitment and who work hard.”
Chelsea will still be without John Terry at Hull City on Saturday as the captain continues his rehabilitation from ankle ligament damage. Conte has experimented playing David Luiz, Gary Cahill and Branislav Ivanovic in a back three in training, and will consider handing Marcos Alonso his first Premier League start for the club at the KCom Stadium. The Italian could become the first Chelsea manager to drop Ivanovic from his lineup on the basis of poor form since André Villas-Boas in 2013. Regardless, Cahill, whose error at Arsenal handed the hosts their opening goal, will retain his place.
“I don’t like to single out players for individual mistakes,” Conte said. “We lose and we win together. We must understand this. If someone makes a mistake, together we must help him and solve the situation. Against Arsenal we had 80 minutes to recover from the mistake. Cahill is a good player, a great defender. I trust him and he plays tomorrow.”
