ROMA RUINS
Fright night for Conte as Chelsea flop
Antonio Conte accused his Chelsea team of lacking ‘hunger and desire’ and trading on their name after watching them crushed 3-0 in Rome last night.
‘if we think because our name is Chelsea and the opponents fear the name Chelsea, this is not the right way,’ fumed Conte.
‘We have to find the hunger we showed all last season and, this season, only sometimes. this season has been up and down. if you are a great team, you must have stability, you must have consistency. At this moment we
are struggling a lot to find this type of balance.’
Roma were a goal up inside a minute and two up at half-time but it was the performance after the interval which really infuriated the Chelsea manager ahead of sunday’s clash with Manchester United.
‘In the first half we were unlucky, it was unfair,’ said Conte. ‘The second half was really bad. Roma showed more desire to be first and win the game. There is greater disappointment for our second half. I didn’t see positive things.
‘It’s very difficult to tell what this is but for sure we have to analyse the game and we need to work on the tactical aspect. We all have to take the responsibility. My task is to try to find the best solution.’ Goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, who made some terrific saves to keep the score down, echoed his manager’s thoughts.
‘In the second half, we dropped our fighting spirit and mentality and that cannot happen,’ said Courtois. ‘We have to fight back on sunday and show that this was an off-day.’
Chelsea legend Frank lampard, working on BT sport, slammed their meek performance.
lampard said: ‘It was the reaction of the players after half- time. Heads down, out of position and all over the place, it was disappointing all over.’
on the same programme, steven Gerrard said the display was ‘ the worst under Conte’.