Chelsea are aiming to arrest their mini-crisis after two disastrous defeats in the league with a win over a struggling West Brom side on Monday. Antonio Conte’s future is up in the air following his team’s back-to-back miserable defeats to Bournemouth and Watford.
Despite poor results since the turn of the year, the Blues are 4th in the league standings, with the FA Cup and Champions League still to play for. However, ahead of the game against the Baggies, Conte has provided injury updates on a number of his players.
One player who is definitely going to miss the game on Monday is Alvaro Morata. Morata is sidelined with a back injury and even our gaffer has no idea when the striker will return.
There was good news on Andreas Christensen, who trained yesterday. Conte is hopeful he can use the defender against West Brom. Pedro seems to have shrugged off the slight injury he sustained in the defeat against Watford, while Olivier Giroud could make his first start for Chelsea since moving from Arsenal on deadline day.
The Blues, meanwhile, will be without central midfielder Tiemoue Bakayoko for the meeting with West Brom. The 23-year-old Frenchman serves a one-game ban after he picked up two yellow cards in the 4-1 defeat at Vicarage Road.
In his pre-match press conference, Conte thanked the fans for the continued support and also explained why he had given the players three days off after the defeat last Monday.
“It was the only moment in the whole season to give them a bit of rest,” the Italian explained.
“In the future it will be very important for the federation to give a little bit of rest to the players. After you play a lot of games every three days, it’s very difficult for every player, especially if you go through in every competition like we have. A bit of rest for players, not only mine, would be important.
“Now we restarted to work in the way that we know. I like to play football and try to dominate the game. To do this we must have personality to play with the ball. Watford was a really bad game for us. But it can happen. The most important thing is that it only happens once.
“We have to try to stop this bad run, and try to get three points. It won’t be easy because as you know in this type of situation, confidence is not high, but we have to trust our work and trust in our football to try and get three points.”
These are not exactly desperate times but we have to bounce back with a win against West Brom on Monday.