CONTE’S REVOLUTION
Intense training, IT boffins and rare team outing have transformed Chelsea
ASHINY leather shoe cut through the air and water bottles scattered like ninepins to all corners of the dressing room. This flash of fury, modern football’s natural successor to the flying teacup, was the starting gun for Antonio Conte’s transformation of Chelsea.
It was half-time at Arsenal, his team were 3-0 down and Conte could hold it in no longer. His players were not entirely surprised. They had seen the steam rising.
He was still seething when he fielded post-match questions.
“Bad game,” he whispered. “We didn’t have the right attitude. We must look in our own house for the problem.”
A worn-out voice and Italian accent conjured the added chill of an underworld threat.
If this was to go wrong, it would go wrong on his terms, and after mapping out proposals over a lunchtime meeting or two with owner Roman Abramovich, the Chelsea manager set to it.
The most striking change was the switch to a back three. Conte has faith in the system, having used it successfully in the past, and here it has helped him impose his trademark.
“You can recognise my team,” said Conte, four games into this winning run, before casting aside Everton 5-0. “More pressure, we stay short, we come back, we work.”
There have been elements of good fortune, too. Injuries to Cesc Fabregas, Branislav Ivanovic and John Mikel Obi crystallised his selection issues.
Demanding
Conte had become convinced that Ivanovic and Gary Cahill could not play side by side on the right of his back four, especially when he had asked them to play out from the back. Neither Fabregas nor Mikel had the legs to do what he was demanding from two central midfielders.
When Willian and Oscar were given compassionate leave after family deaths in Brazil, he had little choice but to turn to Pedro, who injected the extreme pace the team craved.
Pedro is thriving without the burden of defensive instruction. As is Eden Hazard, who has scored five in five since the Arsenal defeat.
“I must focus on my offensive role,” said Hazard, while on duty with Belgium. “The wing backs do the defensive work, that’s the major change.”
Hazard operates in this system as a traditional inside left. He can go wide or inside through the channel to support his centre forward. Now, 11 games into the Premier League season, Hazard and Diego Costa have 16 goals between them, the same as the whole of last season.
Costa appears hungry, focused on goals not arguments, aside from one public dispute with his manager late on in a 3-0 win against Leicester when he demanded to be replaced and was duly left on for the 90 minutes.
Chelsea’s forwards are expected to contribute to the collective effort but are ably covered by a midfield quartet of great stamina: Victor Moses, N’Golo Kante, Nemanja Matic and Marcos Alonso.
The formation change has revived Matic and released Kante to be the livewire he was for Leicester.
The absence of European football afforded Conte time to drive the changes into the minds of his players with a blast of double sessions, including long and repetitive pattern-of-play exercises.
He helps set out cones and leads virtually every session as his team practise tactical routines until they are second nature. No wonder he imports his favourite throat lozenges from Italy.
Any player not exactly where they are told to be can expect an invitation to study the video evidence. Video footage stops the argument in Conte’s view, and Chelsea’s IT analysts have become among the busiest people at the club, unsung heroes of the revolution.
Conte will request a series of clips in the afternoon before he leaves and a new set when he returns the next day because an idea sprang on him in the night. After the Arsenal defeat, Conte returned to his pre-season policy of splitting the squad in two and working outside with one half while the others worked on their body strength in the gym with fitness experts Paolo Bertelli, Julio Tous and Costantino Coratti.
He has restored a winning mentality, according to the players, who clearly feel an affinity with a manager who played at an elite level in a midfield with Zinedine Zidane.
Players are not summoned to his office like naughty schoolchildren. If he wants to make a point, he does it without fuss beside the training pitch.
Nor are they bombarded by texts, a favourite motivational method of Jose Mourinho which had worn thin by the time he departed. Conte prefers to talk.
He manages egos, taking care to involve John Terry, with a late appearance against Everton when the game was won. Terry lost his place while injured but Conte knows he will need him.
Technical director Michael Emenalo is delighted to see young players Nathaniel Chalobah, Ola Aina and Ruben Loftus-Cheek given chances.
Conte’s human touch was noted when he granted Willian and Oscar time in Brazil after family bereavements and sent them messages of support.
His backroom staff are popular and polite around the camp and a rare team outing for a meal at Nobu after the 4-0 win against Manchester United was a success.Of course, the positive energy is amplified by performances and results but Conte seized his moment and has been rewarded.
The upturn means Chelsea approach the transfer market without panic despite Conte’s desire for more cover and competition in areas specific to this system.
Conte’s priority is to add at least one midfielder to compete with Kante and Matic but this will probably hinge on selling or loaning out Fabregas, Mikel or Oscar. He has claimed Ivanovic, Aina or Pedro can do the job, but there are a lack of options at wing back.
Conte’s first-choice players have been available. Seven have started every Premier League game: Thibaut Courtois, Azpilicueta, Cahill, Kante, Matic, Hazard and Costa.
Since Luiz broke into the team, he too has been ever-present. Since Hull and the introduction of the back three, there has been one change in five games – Pedro in for Willian.
The transformation has been remarkable. Six games into the campaign, Chelsea were eighth, eight points adrift of Manchester City. Five games later and they are one point above City and one point behind leaders Liverpool.
They go to Middlesbrough on Sunday having won five in a row without conceding a single goal since the explosion at the Emirates.
Water bottles and everyone in the vicinity are safe. At least for the time being.