Chelsea face tough season
ANTONIO CONTE’S return to Italian football on Tuesday proved such a chastening experience as he watched his Chelsea side dismantled by Roma in the Champions League that he worries they could be set for a “very difficult” season.
A downbeat Conte said he and his players all had to take responsibility for the 3-0 capitulation in Group C, which equalled the biggest he has suffered in his Chelsea reign, and needed to rediscover their hunger for battle quickly.
Chelsea’s Thibaut Courtois, whose second-half saves kept the score down, was also baffled by how the Premier League champions lost their “fighting spirit” after halftime as they became the first English side to lose in the Champions League this season.
Two first-half goals from Stephan El Shaarawy seemed to break Chelsea’s spirit to such an extent that after the break they were both so disorganised at the back and careless with their distribution that they bore no resemblance to the efficient outfit who were so hard to breach last season.
After Diego Perotti made it 3-0, Conte told BT Sport: “Roma showed more will to fight and more desire to win the game. For this performance, we all have to take responsibility.
“When you concede three goals, you must be worried. It means something doesn’t work.”
Talking to Sky Sports, he added: “This season will be very difficult if we don’t understand quickly the right way that we have to go. Last season we showed great hunger, great will to do something of importance. If we think that only because our name is Chelsea and the opponent has fear (of) the name Chelsea, I think this is not the right way.
“We must find the hunger that we showed in all last sea- son and in this season sometimes. We have to try to find the strength to understand and to use this loss in the right way.”
Conte has cut a restless figure all season with Chelsea’s league title defence having been so underwhelming as they lie nine points off leaders Manchester City.
Increasing media speculation about Conte being replaced at Stamford Bridge by compatriot Carlo Ancelotti also left him uncharacteristically irritable at a news conference last week.
Yet he seems even more exasperated with what he is seeing on the field, Chelsea’s woeful defending in the Stadio Olimpico on Tuesday making him wish aloud that such a performance was for “one night only”.
Meanwhile, the youngest goalkeeper to ever play in the Champions League, Benfica’s 18-year-old Mile Svilar, will surely be happy if he now gets a year or two of not facing United.
After his dreadful error in the reverse fixture in Lisbon, when he misjudged a Marcus Rashford free kick and carried it over the line, Svilar was the centre of attention again at Old Trafford on Tuesday, when United won 2-0.
In the 14th minute he was mobbed by his teammates in congratulation after he dived to save an Anthony Martial penalty, keeping the scores level.
But just before the break, luck turned against him when a low strike from Nemanja Matic struck the post, flew out, hit the keeper on the back and bounced into the net.
While there was no real error on Svilar’s part, the goal was recorded as an own goal from the Belgian-Serbian keeper.
“Mixed feelings of course,” said the teenager, when asked how he felt. “A lot of emotions in 20 minutes but I think I couldn’t do anything about it, it is luck. There was nothing I could do about it, but it’s still an own goal.”