Chelsea give their title ambitions a new lease of life
They have won seven of their last nine Premier League games, Antonio Conte said later, but every time Chelsea come off the pitch the question remains: how on earth do you reel in a team that looks as uncatchable as Manchester City have done 16 games into the season?
After the 1-0 defeat to West Ham on Saturday, Conte all but conceded the title arguing that a team which had lost four games by that point could never seriously have claimed to have been in the race in the first place. Having demolished Huddersfield Town, three behind in their own stadium with just 50 minutes played, Conte said that he had just been trying to tell the hard truth about the struggle to keep up with City, although his team would never stop trying.
“When you tell the truth, this is the truth,” he said. “Now we have 11 points less than Manchester City [who have a game in hand]. In 16 games they won 15 and drew one. In 17 games we lost four.
“When you have a competitor like City and every game they are winning, it is very difficult to think you can fight for the title. We must be realistic and tell the truth. I prefer to tell the truth than a good lie. I am like this and sometimes I can be too honest but I like to speak very honestly with my players and with our fans also. But it doesn’t mean we don’t want to try to catch them but we have to hope they have a big, big slip and for us then to win every game. And it is very difficult in this league. You have to put in 120 per cent otherwise you risk dropping points.”
The truth is a hard place for the rest of the Premier League looking up at City for now, hoping that perhaps they will slip at Swansea, although Conte liked what he saw from his team in the wind and rain of West Yorkshire.
They played like a side who dared not let their manager down, with a first goal from Tiemoue Bakayoko, one of the worst performers on Saturday, and only permitted the home side their first serious attempt at goal with the very last action of the game. By then Chelsea had won in third gear, with further goals from Willian and Pedro against a team who looked frankly overwhelmed from the very start.
Conte made changes to his side, replacing Gary Cahill with Antonio Rudiger and the injured Alvaro Morata with Eden Hazard in the central striking position – a false nine for Chelsea, and a whole lot of false hope for Huddersfield, who were never in the game.
They neither pressed the ball nor defended deep with any conviction and afterwards David Wagner said that to get anything from the game they had needed “to over-perform”, which was certainly not the case.
There was a goal headed in by the substitute Laurent Depoitre in injury-time at the end, but by then Conte had granted the 17-year-old Ethan Ampadu his Premier League debut with a run-out at centre-back.
It certainly felt a world away from the day in October that Manchester United were beaten at the John Smith’s stadium and Jose Mourinho praised the adventure and spirit of Wagner’s team.
This performance lacked all the intensity and determination that might produce a shock result like that – and while Wagner was upbeat about his team in the first half even he had to admit that Bakayoko’s opener had been a “sloppy goal to concede”.
Conte had substituted Bakayoko, his £40million midfielder, at halftime of the West Ham defeat, a move he was at pains to say had been tactical rather than reflective of what was unquestionably a poor performance from his France international. “Tonight I saw a big performance from Baka,” Conte said after this victory. “I started to see what I asked for, the right pass between the lines, to be solid and focused for the game.
“This type pf performance will improve his confidence. I am not worried about Baka. He is a young player who is starting to understand he is at a great club and I am very happy he is showing me the
right will to improve himself.” Without pressure when they were in possession, Chelsea broke through on 23 minutes when the Huddersfield No 1 Jonas Lossl slipped as he cleared the ball and it went to Victor Moses. There was still much to do, with the winger directing a header into Hazard, who flicked the ball to Willian, and he played in Bakayoko down the left who got the ball over Lossl and in – notwithstanding an attempt by Chris Lowe to clear.
It got little better for Huddersfield, letting Cesar Azpilicueta switch the play on 43 minutes to the left where Marcos Alonso was given the time to cross to the back post for Willian to head in unchallenged. Wagner did try to change his side at half-time, bringing on the 35-year-old Dean Whitehead in midfield in what seemed like an attempt to retain possession.
It was an inauspicious start to the second half for the home side with a third Chelsea goal within five minutes – yet another dangerous cross from Alonso, poorly defended by Christopher Schindler and right into the path of Pedro who buried his chance. There was eventually a run-out for Michy Batshuayi who came on as a centre-forward in a game that his team were cruising through, and Hazard, N’golo Kante and Andreas Christensen were all given a breather
Finally, Depoitre glanced in a header from the cross of his fellow substitute Florent Hadergjonaj, with Thibaut Courtois missing only the second chance he had all evening to make a save.