Antonio Conte has told everyone that Chelsea will need to be “realistic” in their ambitions in keeping their Premier League crown this season, after beating AFC Bournemouth 1-0 at the Vitality Stadium on Saturday evening.
The Blues have already suffered three defeats, leaving them nine points behind leaders Manchester City after ten games so far, with the title rivals inflicting one of those defeats.
Conte’s men currently sit fourth in the table, with shock defeats to Crystal Palace and Burnley on the opening weekend of the season, appearing to show the cracks in the Stamford Bridge outfit’s defence.
John Terry, who has been influential for the Blues for over two decades, left the club to join Steve Bruce at Aston Villa and Chelsea appear to have lost some of their mojo going forward – with the much-publicised fall-out between the Italian boss and Diego Costa during the summer.
Realistic aims
However, Conte’s side appeared to show any doubters that they were back to their best when they defeated Watford last weekend and carried that form into Saturday’s fixture with Bournemouth.
Yet the manager was keen to keep everyone in check by stating that his team must remain realistic about their chances of topping the league at the end of the season.
“At this moment we must be realistic by going game by game,” he told Sky Sports.
“We have 19 points and we deserve to have 19 points.
"At this moment we must be realistic by going game by game," says Antonio Conte on the PL title race.
— Sky Sports PL 👑 (@SkySportsPL) October 29, 2017
More here: https://t.co/TxfEehMGFq pic.twitter.com/LKkMMrqVLl
Conte admitted he was pleased with how things were going for his team currently in the other tournaments that they are involved in, however, was not sure if they could maintain it throughout the year.
“Are we able to do this? I don’t know. But we will try to stay there. I know very well that, in England in this league, there are six top teams, very strong,” he added.
Chelsea will travel to Italy to play AS Roma in the Champions League on Tuesday before Jose Mourinho returns to Stamford Bridge with his Manchester United side next Sunday in a Premier League clash.
No concerns about star man
The club will be hopeful summer record signing Alvaro Morata will return to the form he had before he suffered an injury during the defeat to City, however, his manager is not worried about it at the moment and believes it will be just a matter of time.
“Honestly, I’m happy with his commitment, his desire, his will to fight,” he said.
“For sure, he can do better but, don’t forget, he is recovering from a muscular problem.
“When you have this type of problem, it needs a bit of time to come back to the best physical condition. But I’m very happy with his performance.”
