Thibaut Courtois has revealed that Chelsea manager Antonio Conte is more tactically focused to the game than his previous club coaches; José Mourinho and Diego Simeone.
The Italian has earned loads of praise for his tactical cunning in the Chelsea team, switching the former system of 4-3-3 to a brand new 3-4-3 formation. The previous style of play seemed all right at first, but following a draw at Swansea and back-to-back defeats against fellow title challengers Liverpool and Arsenal, Conte decided to take action and find a formation to fit Chelsea’s style of play the best.
Before returning to Chelsea from a stellar loan under Simeone at Atletico Madrid where he made over 100 league appearances lifting the title once and winning the Europa League in 2012, the 23-year-old goalkeeper has spoke to La Tribune about Conte’s way of managing after Belgium’s 8-1 victory over Estonia on Sunday.
Conte is the one that works most tactically. Then there is [Diego] Simeone, then Mourinho and finally [Marc] Wilmots.
We started the season [with] 4-3-3. We started well with three wins but then we drew 2-2 at Swansea and lost against Liverpool playing a bad game. That was also the case against Arsenal. Then Conte said, ‘we will change’. At Hull, things were rather mixed at first and then against Leicester, Manchester United, Southampton and especially against Everton, we really saw the quality of the team.
In pre-season, he [Conte] tried the 4-2-4 but he saw that it was not working very well, so he went to 4-3-3 because he knew that Willian and [Eden] Hazard were strong in one against ones.But he found that too many avoidable goals were scored and decided to play safely by moving to three at the back.
– Thibaut Courtois, La Tribune (Evening Standard)
Chelsea’s other Belgian star Eden Hazard has also showed revival from the previous season, and Courtois thinks the change in formation was the key for the PFA Player of the Year 2015 to find his best form once again.
The 25-year-old winger has already netted seven goals in this season’s Premier League campaign, and he’s just two behind the Blues striker Diego Costa, who leads the top scorer standings of the league with nine goals.
