Chelsea lost 1-0 against Manchester City in the Premier League this Sunday and the Blues are now fallen 5 points behind the 4th place Tottenham Hotspur.
Antonio Conte’s team posed absolutely no threat to Man City and Guardiola’s men were literally taking a stroll in the park. The Italian had set up his team to defend and minimize the damage and pundits Gary Neville and Jamie Redknapp blasted the Chelsea boss for being negative and ambitionless.
Sky Sports pundits Jamie Redknapp and Gary Neville thrashed Conte for Chelsea’s approach calling it “anti-football,”
Redknapp said. “That was a crime against football what they did today… it was like they didn’t want to go forward at all. Chelsea gave them three points before they started.”
While Gary Neville called it “embarrassing” and added, “They’re just watching Manchester City play; they’re like mannequins… it is painful to watch, this.”
But unlike a lot of other managers, Antonio Conte was certainly not going to sit back and soak in all these harsh criticism.
The Italian replied by saying, “I think this moment you have to accept every critic,
“But I’m not so stupid to play against Manchester City open and to lose three or four nil. If I remember well, a few days ago, Arsenal played twice against them, they conceded three goals in 13 minutes. The pundit has to use the head to understand when you speak about tactics, you must have knowledge to speak about tactics, not only to speak in a stupid way.”
But this tactic from Conte was not a big secret really as the manager had yesterday indicated that he will set up his team in a way so that they can nullify City’s attacking threat – which basically meant that they were going out to defend.
And defend they did.
With the win against Chelsea Guardiola’s team are now 18 points clear at the top of the table(Liverpool are currently second). Manchester United who play tomorrow will have the chance to reclaim their second spot by winning against Crystal Palace and bring down City’s lead to 16 points.
