Chelsea news: Antonio Conte reveals how Liverpool and Arsenal defeats 'changed something'

After holding off on tweaking his team early on in the season, it took defeats by Liverpool and then Arsenal before Conte was handed free rein to implement his unique style of football

Antonio Conte's tactical nous have helped guide Chelsea to the top of the table (Getty)

Four matches into his new job Antonio Conte had doubts. Chelsea had taken ten points from 12 but rarely convinced. But managers do not change winning teams on a hunch, especially not new ones, certainly not if the players have seen off a succession of garlanded coaches. So Conte waited.

Then Chelsea lost at home to Liverpool, and away at Arsenal. Now Conte was convinced, and the dressing room was receptive. A free week – made possible by Chelsea’s absence from Europe – enabled the Italian to drill them on the training ground in an unfamiliar formation: 3-4-3. They went to Hull, kept a clean sheet, and won. They hosted the champions, kept a clean sheet, and won. Three months on they are clear at the top, still keeping clean sheets, still winning.

“In my mind,” revealed Conte after the 11th straight win, against Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park on Saturday, “before the game I understood our formation wasn’t good to face Liverpool, on the tactical aspect. And we paid for this. And also against Arsenal. And then I decided to change. To see my teams have two bad defeats - we deserved two bad defeats - I didn't like this. It changed something in me, in the players, in the club.

“Now we are playing with three central defenders and, in the history of Chelsea, maybe this has never happened. You hope you don’t [have to] change because I have players who have only played with four [defenders]. To change totally the situation is not easy, and you must go slowly to put your idea [across]. In my mind in the game against Liverpool there was the will to change, but I waited for the right moment - after two bad defeats. Now we have 11 wins, nine clean sheets. It's fantastic, because it's not easy to not concede a goal in this league.”

“Eleven games ago we were eight points less than [Manchester] City, now we have ten points more than them,” added midfielder Nemanja Matic, speaking before City’s match with Arsenal on Sunday. “We are where we want to be, but there is still a long way to go and we expect many hard games.”

Chelsea next host Bournemouth, on Boxing Day. The Cherries’ victory at Stamford Bridge was one of the matches that hastened the end for Jose Mourinho as the 2015 champions stumbled from defeat to defeat.

“We have tried to forget last season,” added Matic. “I forgot very quickly the season when we were champions too, because in football every day is a different challenge. No one asks what has happened before. The present and the future is the most important and this is good for us because last year was not good. We have confidence now. We work very hard every day in training and we understand each other very well.”

Matic cruised through Saturday’s match against a Palace side who struggle to penetrate centrally and whose wide men threaten only sporadically. “This year the results have not been good enough and we need to make sure they are better next year,” said manager Alan Pardew. “I’m hurting for Crystal Palace. It’s a great club, I think it’s got great owners, and we just can’t deliver on the results we would like.”

Pardew, who will target a left-back and striker in the transfer window, added: “We had a great 2015. We now need to replicate that in 2017, and we can do that.”

Midfielder James McArthur added: “We are in a relegation scrap and we're not hiding away from it. Everyone is confident we have more than enough quality to climb the table – we have some big characters and it only takes one win for us to pick up and build momentum. But we know Watford [away on Boxing Day] is a must-win for us.”