A first defeat and a first inquest for Antonio Conte after his Chelsea side were beaten 1-2 at home by Liverpool last night; the first time the Italian tactician had suffered a home loss since January 2013. 30 games later and his side fluff their lines in their biggest test of the new Premier League season. In an interview with Thierry Henry ahead of the game, Conte stated that “If there was a player in his team with a bad attitude, I prefer to kill him”. Both Oscar and Willian, on last night’s evidence, obviously didn’t watch it.
 

However, it’s only the first defeat and it’s only the beginning of the season so it’s too early to start pressing the panic button, but that’s exactly what some of the club’s supporters have done. Disgruntled fans want to know where the grit that typifies a Conte team has gone, why there is a lack of concentration in the defence and why he chose to make a triple change so late in the second-half, finally replacing the ineffective Matic, Oscar and Willian. If title rivals Manchester City win at home to Bournemouth today they will already have opened up a five-point gap on Conte’s men at the top of the table. “I’m not a magician” claimed the former Juventus boss on his arrival at Stamford Bridge and most people are aware of this but the fans will not accept another season without Champions League football.  

Using his opposite number last night, Jurgen Klopp, as an example, a new coach needs to adjust to a new league, a new country with a different culture to the one he is used to. Conte’s defence last night was missing John Terry and quite clearly, it was missing any leadership perfectly summed up in Liverpool’s first goal by Lovren. The Daily Mail claimed that; “Conte will be happy with the way his team responded after a tragic first-half” but the only positive signals comes in the attack where Diego Costa looks reborn under the tutelage of the Italian. The fans are still with Conte for now; next week they travel across the capital to face Arsenal.

By Guglielmo Cannavale​. Adapted and translated by Steve Mitchell