CONTE’S OUTFOXED

Chelsea boss under siege as his toiling side are given the runaround

CHELSEA took advantage of a brief lull in the fighting between Antonio Conte and Jose Mourinho to scramble under the barbed wire and play a football match yesterday. If Conte was hoping the contest would bring him some respite from the fractiousness that is lingering around him, his future and the club he manages, this goalless draw with a purring Leicester City was not the game he needed.

Conte’s side were comprehensively outplayed by Claude Puel’s team for two thirds of the game and were lucky to escape with a point. Even when Leicester were reduced to 10 men in the 68th minute courtesy of Ben Chilwell’s second yellow card, Chelsea rarely looked like breaking them down. They are without a win in four games now and they left the field to yells of dismay from the crowd.

This was, in fact, their third goalless draw in succession, the first time that that has happened in their history. Conte (above) is not parking the bus but it was notable that he substituted Eden Hazard and Cesc Fabregas yesterday and left Tiemoue Bakayoko on the pitch. Hazard and Fabregas were tired after the Carabao Cup semi-final first leg against Arsenal last Wednesday, Conte said.

Alvaro Morata, the club’s £70million signing, is desperately out of form. Their defence is watertight but they cannot score. Problems appear to be multiplying and the result, which leaves them 15 points adrift of Manchester City, will do little to lift the air of siege that has settled around a manager who could do no wrong in his first season in west London but who has been a restless, fretful discontented presence during this campaign.

Conte has allowed himself to become rattled by Mourinho’s expertly aimed barbs and by what he perceives as his club’s failure to match his ambitions in the transfer market.

When Mourinho’s latest comments about feeling contempt for Conte were put to him after the match, he sighed wearily and tried to draw a line under the row. ‘I don’t know if he said this for me,’ he said. ‘I’m not worried. I sleep very well.’ The build-up to this match had seen him fending off suggestions that he would leave the club at the end of the season and that either Juventus boss Massimiliano Allegri or Luis Enrique had already been lined up to take over from him. The way his team played during this game suggested that all the off-the-field distractions may be taking their toll on the players, too. In this meeting of the two most recent Premier League champions, Leicester had begun playing as though it was they, not Chelsea, who were the current title holders. For much of the first half, they turned the clock back to the glory days of that fairy-tale season under Claudio Ranieri. They overwhelmed Chelsea with the pace and guile of their play. Conte’s team struggled to cope with the combination of Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez in particular. Their understanding seemed telepathic. The opening 45 minutes featured a succession of Leicester chances interrupted occasionally by a Chelsea foray upfield.

Mahrez was the best player on the pitch and his display was a reminder of why he continues to be linked with a move to a leading club.

All the fluency and the technique belonged to the visitors. Chelsea looked slow and cumbersome and when they did have the ball, even Hazard was careless in possession. Much of what he did was sublime. It always is. But after he had worked his magic with the ball, he too often gave it away.

Leicester should have taken the lead after eight minutes when Chilwell ran on to a long diagonal ball on the left flank and cut sharply inside. He dragged a cross back from the byline into the path of Shinji Okazaki but he could only lift it over the bar from close range when he should have scored.

Only Fabregas offered much in the way of creative play going forward for Chelsea. Kasper Schmeichel saved well from him at his near post but it was not long before the home side were on the defensive again. This time, they were indebted to a fine saving tackle from Gary Cahill that denied Mahrez after he had played a clever 1-2 with Okazaki.

Cahill went off soon afterwards with what looked like a hamstring injury and ten minutes into the second half, his replacement, Andreas Christensen, was at the centre

of a penalty controversy. Mahrez burst into the box and even though Christensen did not make a tackle, Mahrez tumbled over him and Leicester bayed for a spot kick. Referee Mike Jones waved play on. It was the correct decision.

Chelsea finally began to gain a foothold in the game when Conte brought on Willian and Pedro for Hazard and Fabregas and they were given another boost when Chilwell was sent off for second booking in six minutes, for a studsup tackle on Victor Moses that might have been a straight red.

Chelsea pressed for a winner in the dying minutes and Schmeichel saved well from a bouncing Marcos Alonso free kick but they never looked like getting the goal they needed.

It was put to Conte at the end that the Chelsea goal drought might be eased by the addition of a player like Alexis Sanchez. Conte frowned. ‘As you know very well,’ he said, ‘this is a topic I don’t want to deal with with the press. I’m the coach. I’m trying to do the best with my players, to try and improve my players, to try to give every day 110 per cent. Sometimes, this is enough. Sometimes this is not enough. It’s not my business. Not my business.’

The air of gloom and disquiet around Stamford Bridge lingers on.