Conte still wary despite easy victory
PLAYERS KNOW WE HAVEN’T WON IT YET Wenger’s Arsenal dismantled by leaders in a clinical display.
Chelsea manager Antonio Conte promised to keep a close eye on his players’ concentration levels after they tightened their grip on the Premier League title race by beating Arsenal.
Goals from Marcos Alonso, Eden Hazard and Cesc Fabregas gave Chelsea a 3-1 win on Saturday that left them 12 points clear of Arsenal and nine points above second-placed Tottenham who edged Middlesbrough 1-0.
But Conte said his own experiences of home-straight collapses with Juventus means he will not consider the race over until the trophy is in his hands.
“I don’t slip and I don’t want my players to slip,” he told reporters at Stamford Bridge, in an unwitting echo of Steven Gerrard’s words prior to Liverpool’s collapse in the 2013-14 season.
“In my squad I have a lot of players with good experience, because they won a lot in their careers. They know that until now we haven’t won the title.
“And it’s important to know this, to keep our antennae very high, because in my career as a footballer, above all as a footballer, I won a lot, but I lost a lot.
“And when you lose three finals of the Champions League and you win only one, I think you have a great hunger.
“During my experience as a footballer I won a title with eight points (to make up) four games before the end and another time I lost in the same way.”
The chief talking point from Saturday’s game centred around Chelsea’s 13th-minute opener, awarded despite Alonso cleaning out Hector Bellerin with his forearm as he leapt to head the ball in.
Bellerin had to go off, to be replaced by Gabriel, and Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger felt it was “100 percent a foul”.
Conte, unsurprisingly, took a different view.
“This ball, it’s a contest and Alonso jumps more than Bellerin and scores a goal. To hear this in England, I’m surprised. I must be honest. In Italy, maybe (it would have been a foul).”
Hazard scored a stupendous second in the 53rd minute, running from the centre circle, shrugging off Francis Coquelin and twice outfoxing Laurent Koscielny before firing home.
Former Arsenal captain Fabregas lobbed in Chelsea’s third after a misplaced kick from Cech before Olivier Giroud replied with a stoppage-time header. – AFP