CONTE HITS BACK
Chelsea held as boss blows his top in new Jose outburst
TOO bad that after all the fighting talk from their manager in the build-up, Chelsea’s second string rocked up in Norfolk without anything like the same appetite for a scrap.
They were weak, lacking in edge, spite and purpose — just about the opposite of Antonio Conte in his controversial performance on Friday, when he didn’t just light the touchpaper on a feud with Jose Mourinho but rammed it into his mouth as well.
While the finer points of Conte’s rant crossed a line in taste, there can be no doubting his side needed some of the fire of his wider message here. It was a mess of a performance, from a flat first half that bordered on the inept to the second, when time and again they were limited to half- chances by the 13thranked side in the Championship.
But Conte was back on the anti-Mourinho beat straight after the game, saying: ‘We know him very well from the past, but it is always the same. This is his way, which isn’t surprising to me.
‘ When you insult another person I think you are a little man. That’s what I think, he is a little man. Life will go on, I’m not worried about him, but for sure, there is an opportunity when we play Manchester United to clarify this in a room.’
As for this game, take nothing away from Norwich City — they did a brilliant job of containment and showed more ambition going forward than most Premier League sides when faced with the bigger creatures of the top flight. Josh Murphy, in particular, had chances to win this game.
Chelsea will now run into extra fixture congestion and for that can blame themselves, because the performance was generally lousy. It was a drastically changed side to the one Conte prefers in the League. On the specifics, Conte made nine changes, with only Gary Cahill and Tiemoue Bakayoko retained from the side that drew at Arsenal. Most notable among the incoming was David Luiz, playing for the first time since November 22 and still rusty after recovering from a knee injury.
He was caught in possession twice in dangerous areas and each time allowed Alex Pritchard a look at goal.
It is hard to recall a half from Chelsea’s season so far when they have made so many individual errors, sent so many passes to the wrong shirt and delivered so many long punts on purely a whim. Danny Drinkwater, Davide Zappacosta, Antonio Rudiger — none of them found any traction in that first 45 minutes.
It didn’t help that Michy Batshuayi again struggled to serve as a meaningful target man.
That shouldn’t detract from Norwich’s effort. They controlled the half, forced plenty of the errors and made the only decent openings, such as they were in a period where no shots went on target.
Most of what was good came from Murphy, who repeatedly got the better of Rudiger and might have made a tangible difference with sharper finishing.
Chelsea were better in the second half. Almost immediately the chances came, with Christoph Zimmermann blocking a goalbound Zappacosta header before Bakayoko drilled wide and Willian drew a pair of saves from Angus Gunn.
Still Norwich wouldn’t lied own. Pritchard had a shot deflected over and Murphy had a volley touched wide by Luiz with Willy Caballero stranded, which concerned Conte sufficiently to bring on Alvaro Morata. Nice option from the bench, but it altered nothing.