As The Blues have landed in Los Angeles for the continuation of their pre-season, Antonio Conte appeared in a press conference ahead of the first International Champions Cup challenge against Liverpool.
The Italian has taken the team into an extreme summer ahead of the new season, keeping a heavy workload till the season kicks off in early August at Stamford Bridge against London rivals West Ham.
Conte thinks the team has done well even though fatigue is noticeable, but the hard work has to go on until the end, as there is always room for improvement.
I know they are a bit tired but it’s normal. It’s important to prepare a good season.
In these two days we worked a lot but we want to play a good game against Liverpool and I want to see improvement of my players.
Chelsea finished tenth last season, breaking all the wrong records like conceding more goals (53) than any other title holder in the Premier League history, and Conte is desperate to work hard to fix all that.
When you have a bad season like last season for Chelsea I think the blame is a bit with all.
For this reason it’s important to create a good spirit and stay together, both if we win or lose.
We have to trust in our work, our ideas and our confidence. This is the most important thing.
Due to disappointing campaign last season many players have been linked with an exit from Stamford Bridge this summer, including Chelsea’s pivot duo Nemanja Matic and Cesc Fabregas.
However, the new Blues manager is keen to hold on to all the players he has, and is reluctant of selling any of the players in the current Chelsea squad.
Matic is an important player for me, a very important player. In my idea of football he is an important player and he knows this.
He (N’Golo Kanté) played a fantastic season with Leicester, for me a good Euros, and now I can’t wait to see him and work with him.
The Italian has also hinted that young defensive midfielder Nathaniel Chalobah, who enjoyed a solid loan spell at Napoli last season, is going to stay at Chelsea for the upcoming campaign.
N’Golo, Nemanja, Cesc, Oscar, Chalobah and Mikel who is in the Olympics, it is not easy to choose. I want to have this problem.
The spirit is always important. You can have a fantastic player but if there isn’t a team, good spirit, then it’s very difficult.
