Conte furious as regal Romans rip Chelsea to shreds
AnTonIo Conte accused his Chelsea team of lacking ‘hunger and desire’ and trading on their name after watching them crumble in Rome.
‘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. We all have to take the responsibility. My task is to try to find the best solution.’
This was not what Conte had in mind on his first competitive return to the Italian capital.
The first two goals were scored by Stephan El Shaarawy and were so simple and poorly defended it was hard to imagine this was the team Conte had so well drilled last season. Suddenly, they have lost all shape and composure at the back, disrupted by Edin Dzeko, who once again proved too strong.
Roma have scored six against them in 180 minutes and it might easily have been more.
Diego Perotti drove in the third in the second half before missing the best chance of the game, firing over when totally unmarked in front of goal. In attack, Chelsea were as wasteful but their carelessness at the back and the ease with which they were unzipped infuriated Conte.
‘When you concede three goals, you must be worried,’ added the Italian.
Roma stormed into the lead with less than a minute on the clock when Aleksandar Kolarov launched a long, diagonal pass forward from the left towards Dzeko, who twisted in the air to reach it with his head.
The connection he made was not the contact he was looking for but he managed to divert the ball behind him and into the path of El Shaarawy, galloping forward in support from the right.
The Bosnian’s knockdown was fortunate but it was not handball, as claimed by Marcos Alonso, and there was no luck involved in the finish, a searing strike by El Shaarawy on the bounce with the outside of his right boot.
Clearly, Eusebio Di Francesco’s team felt Chelsea were vulnerable and here was the proof.
Without Cesar Azpilicueta in the back three and n’Golo Kante in midfield, the Premier League champions are not nearly so solid.
Kante has been out for nearly a month with a hamstring injury sustained on international duty with France.
He has been back in training since Friday and travelled with the squad to Rome, but he was not even on the bench.
The Londoners were out of shape when Radja nainggolan tested their defensive capabilities with another long pass from the left.
Antonio Rudiger seemed set to tidy it up but hesitated, allowed it to bounce and Azpilicueta was beaten in a sprint by El Shaarawy, who applied a clever poke with his right foot to beat Thibaut Courtois after 36 minutes.
Chelsea enjoyed good chances to reduce the deficit before half-time. Alisson Becker saved from Alonso and Tiemoue Bakayoko headed wide from a corner.
Early in the second half, Conte replaced captain Gary Cahill with Willian. Cue more shuffling around. But no sooner had Pedro moved to right wing-back than Perotti darted past him on the inside and sent a third goal skidding past Courtois from the edge of the penalty area.
Conte’s return to Italy was one to forget. He came, he saw, he conceded three and more than 50,000 Romans launched into their celebrations as they went top of the group.