WE KANTE REST ON OUR LAURELS
N’GOLO KANTE insists the Chelsea players know the unforgiving demands from the club’s hierarchy means they know they have to do even better next season.
The Stamford Bridge club have vowed to back Antonio Conte in the transfer market despite not securing his long-term future.
The English Premier League champions are set to nail down a new centre forward as they look to do a £67million deal for Real Madrid striker Alvaro Morata.
Chelsea are ready to go on a mega-spree and in addition to Morata, they want reinforcements in defence and midfield which will take their spending well over £150m.
The club claim it is recognition of last season’s title-winning success and what they believe the Blues boss can achieve this term.
Conte was understood to be frustrated at Chelsea’s transfer activity but similarly the club were left annoyed by the fall-out surrounding Diego Costa being told by text he has no future there.
This marks a compromise but means there will remain doubts about whether Conte is in for the long haul amid tensions with director Marina Granovskaia’s over transfer dealings.
Kante prefers to focus on things on the park and despite helping Chelsea to the title and winning Footballer of the Year, he is aware they still must push on for more trophies.
The midfielder said: “Football is like this, after every game you have to do better in the next game and the season is the same.
“After last season we have to start in the same way and try to do better.
“We are looking to do better together and we know at a club like Chelsea a good season means to win titles.
“So we will try to win some more titles. We will win what we can win. We will fight for everything.
“We will fight against good teams. So it is going to be difficult.
“But we will try to win everything we play in.”
It has been a typically turbulent summer at Stamford Bridge with question marks over Conte’s future, frustrations in the transfer market and they arrived in China without their star player Eden Hazard and their £40m midfield signing Tiemoue Bakayoko.
With both of them back in London recovering from injury, the summer preparations are hardly going to plan.
But the Conte crisis has at least been averted. The fear was that the Italian would walk out just as he did at Juventus.
However, rather than the big new contract as a reward for the title, it has ended up just being a pay rise.
There has been disillusionment on both sides. Conte fed-up after missing out on the likes of Romelu Lukaku and Chelsea annoyed by the treatment of Costa.
But Conte did have big problems last season after an unhappy start and turned it around to win the title.
Kante said: “He is a good coach. We achieved success together last season and we hope for more in the new season. It was so important we prepared well.
“For me, it will be the first time to play in the Champions League. So I am looking forward to this competition. Season after season we need to improve. It’s the objective of the club.”