Chelsea close in on title and glory
Fifa boss enters fray in Muntari race row
CHELSEA manager Antonio Conte said his side were “another little step” from the Premier League title after they crushed Middlesbrough 3-0 to move to within touching distance of glory.
Tottenham Hotspur’s surprise defeat at West Ham United last week handed Chelsea the initiative and they can now seal a second title triumph in three years if they win at West Bromwich Albion on Friday.
“We’re very close. We must be honest. But we need to do another little step and win another game,” Conte told reporters after Monday’s match, which condemned Middlesbrough to relegation.
“For sure now I’m a bit relaxed. This step was big for us, a big win.
“Now we need to do another step. We have the possibility to do this on Friday against West Brom.
“For sure it won’t be easy, because West Brom is a really good team, a physical team, and we must pay great attention.
“We are very close, but we need another step to become champions of the Premier League, which would be a fantastic achievement for us.”
While victory at West Brom will deliver the title, Chelsea also have home games against Watford and Sunderland in which to snare the three points they need to make it across the finish line.
Cesc Fabregas was Chelsea’s match-winner, inventively creating goals for Diego Costa and Nemanja Matic either side of half-time at a festive Stamford Bridge.
Marcos Alonso also found the net in the first half.
Fabregas began the season on the bench after new signing N’Golo Kante took his place, but he has played an increasingly prominent role in recent weeks.
“Cesc is one of the best examples of our season,” Conte said.
“Because in this season, Cesc at the start didn’t play a lot. And then through hard work, he improved a lot. And then he’s playing in every game.
“This development of Cesc is our development, because we started the season with a lot of problems. But FIFA president Gianni Infantino said he intends to talk with Pescara midfielder Sulley Muntari, the victim of racist abuse in Italian football, and vowed to fight racist “idiots”. Muntari was booked for complaining about racist abuse during a match at Cagliari and subsequently suspended, although that sanction was later lifted. The Ghanaian then walked off the field in protest in the final minutes of the game. Infantino told reporters yesterd that he intended to talk with Muntari and would give him Fifa’s “full solidarity”. The Fifa president also said he would be discussing the issue with Italian Football Federation President Carlo Tavecchio. “I will speak to Muntari as well... we will work tog Infantino, who is in Bahrain for tomorrow’s Fifa Congress, said. through hard work, together we found the right way.
“Cesc is showing [himself ] to be a fantastic player and I’m pleased for him. Because I saw in this season that he put himself in this team in every moment, if he played or didn’t play. Now he’s deserving this.”
Needing victory to stand a realistic chance of preserving their top-flight status, Boro succumbed to a defeat that sent them into the Championship alongside north-east rivals Sunderland.
Conte made a point of saluting Boro’s travelling fans after the game.
“It’s great to see a team that got relegated and to see the fans clapping the players and the players staying there to receive the applause and to clap the fans,” said the Italian.
Boro manager Steve Agnew said his dressing room was “devastated”.
“We’ve worked so hard for a number of years to get back into the Premier League and we know how tough the Premier League is,” he said.
“Obviously we’ve come up short.”
Asked what could be done about the issue, Infantino said: “Fight. Continue to fight. It’s good to bring these things out when they happen.”
Infantino said the protocol, established by Uefa in Europe, with a series of stadium announcements leading up to a possible stopping of the game, should be applied.
“Unfortunately idiots, there are always idiots everywhere but we have to fight them,” he said.
Muntari said he had complained that parts of the crowd had hurled racist insults at him from the start of the game on April 30.
The player said the referee told him to stop talking to the crowd and ended up showing him the yellow card for dissent in the 90th minute.
The decision to punish Muntari has been widely criticised and the player himself has said Fifa and Uefa are not taking the issue of racism seriously.
But Fifa secretary general Fatma Samoura rejected that charge and said the organisation had the structures to deal with the problem. Asked for her personal view on the Muntari case, the Senegalese official said that was irrelevant.
“My personal view does not matter. What matters is that the disciplinary committee has to act and the sooner the better,” she said. — Reuters
Agnew, who took over in a caretaker capacity after Aitor Karanka was sacked in March, would not be drawn on whether he would like the role on a permanent basis.
“I don’t think it’s about my situation. It’s about the football club,” he said.
“We all know it’s a Premier League football club in terms of everything about it – the supporters, the stadium, the training ground. The infrastructure is all there.
“So we have to finish the season strong. We have two games to go. We need to gain more points.
“And then everything moving forward will be towards getting Middlesbrough Football Club back into the Premier League as soon as possible.” — AFP