But rather than find an alternative, the west Londoners have simply gone back to the man who helped deliver the club’s only Champions League triumph in 2012.
Advertisement
Speaking to L’Equipe, Hazard said: “Conte puts trust in his players and now we are good after an ugly season past year”.
Mourinho led the Blues to a Premier League and League Cup double in the 2014-15 season, but his second spell in charge at Stamford Bridge came to an end in December previous year after Chelsea lost nine of their opening 16 Premier League games and they eventually slumped to a 10th-place finish. “I know this from my experience as a player”, Conte told reporters on Friday.
Chelsea boss Antonio Conte admits that the signing of defender David Luiz was a “last-minute” decision.
However, with John Terry and Gary Cahill entrenched as Chelsea’s centre-backs and the defence functioning well as a unit, Luiz and fellow new recruit Marcos Alonso, a left-back signed from Fiorentina, may have to wait for their first appearances. To work on the weakness and make the player stronger.
The players think the same as me – we would prefer to play the Champions League. “He’s an important player for this”. “We know against Swansea it will be very tough”.
“They need some time to get into that, so the chance of them playing is not high”. For this reason, we bought David Luiz. “He can bring good personality”.
Conte said: “It (Luiz rejoining) can be an opportunity – a solution”.
Conte’s training methods also won praise from Oscar, who has started all three Premier League games to date under the Italian.
“Now we have to work on the defensive situation, on the defensive line”.
“Luiz is 29, it is a fantastic age for him to become one of the best defenders in the world”.
“We needed to have a game plan, the tactics and way we want to play drilled into everyone and everybody buy into it”. In different positions I am available.
Advertisement
And Luiz has set his sights on winning the league having missed out on the title in his first spell. This time, he made sure not to see history repeat itself, going back to Paris a few days after the transfer to say his goodbyes. And I hope it will be this year.
