Antonio Conte quite impressed with Chelsea

Football News – Antonio Conte believes Chelsea displayed a different side to their title credentials in last night’s 1-0 win over West Brom.

It took a solitary goal from Diego Costa late in the second half to breakthrough a typically resolute Tony Pulis defence.

The Blues manager claimed that this was no less than what he expected heading into the game though, with the home side and particularly their fans frustrated for the majority of the 90 minutes.

“It was a very difficult game but we knew this,” Conte said in his post-match press conference.

“I spoke a lot this week about this game because we faced a very tough team, a physical team that is very difficult to break down. But I’m pleased because today we showed great maturity and great patience to find the right solution.”

With the result seeing Chelsea move three points clear at the top of the table, the Italian says they are in the right mindset heading into the packed New Year schedule.

“When you have an easy win sometimes you can lose concentration or focus. I like to see my team fight in the same way as West Brom, and it wasn’t easy. They showed me this: great character, great attention, great motivation to try to win,” Conte added.

“Now it’s important to think about the next game against Sunderland on Wednesday, because we have only two days to prepare for this game. It’s important to be focused because this is a very important moment. We have a lot of games in the Christmas period and it’s very difficult for all the teams.”

West Brom manager Tony Pulis admitted that his players may have been too focused on trying to shutdown Conte’s 3-4-3 formation rather than creating their own attacks.

“They play a different formation to most teams in the Premier League…we had a good week working on it, what we wanted to do and what we didn’t want to do. We were well set up, I thought, without possession and we caused them some problems on the break, especially in the first half,” said Pulis.

“What we needed to do was when we regained possession, just get that pass off to get us up the pitch a bit further to give us the opportunity to cause them some more problems.”

Category: Football