Hark back a week and it was the most spectacular scoreline of the season: Chelsea 4 Manchester United 0. Yet we live in a world where some assume transfer activity assumes greater importance than actual football; in such a parallel universe, the opposite tally had seemed to be true.
Jose Mourinho had secured all four of his preferred additions, Antonio Conte none of his. N’Golo Kante came closest, but even he ranked behind Radja Nainggolan on the shortlist of midfielders. Michy Batshuayi was hurriedly bought when Crystal Palace triggered his release clause at Marseille.
One deadline day signing, Marcos Alonso, seemed to come from nowhere. Where the other, David Luiz, figured on a list of defensive targets that included Leonardo Bonucci and Kalidou Koulibaly, is a moot point; the only issue is precisely how many apparently more reassuring figures were ahead of him.
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All of which makes Conte’s recent feats all the more impressive. From the rubble of defeats to Liverpool and Arsenal, from the rabble of a seemingly declining team, he has engineered a remarkable revival. There were four goals against United; there have been four wins and four clean sheets. Sunday’s victory at Southampton leaves Chelsea only one point off the top of the table.
It is a situation Conte may have envisaged with a side including Bonucci, Nainggolan, Miralem Pjanic and Alvaro Morata, the men who could have been the faces of a new regime.
Instead he started the season with 10 of those who begun the previous campaign — Kante for the dropped Cesc Fabregas was the sole change — and now has a mix-and-match team: part Mourinho’s players, part his rejects, part someone else at Chelsea’s signings, with the added complication that some have been rebranded: Cesar Azpilicueta as a centre-back, Victor Moses as a wing-back and a first choice, Kante as a midfielder with licence to break into the final third.
Having arrived pronouncing his intention to play 4-2-4, his revelatory 3-4-2-1 is an indication of his capacity to implement a rapid rethink. It helps, of course, that an absence of European football gives more time on the training ground. But it shows he has the imagination to reinvent and rejuvenate players. It highlights his mastery of a back three, something he displayed with Juventus and Italy.
But, above all, it proves that Conte is passing a true test of management. The job is rarely about perfection. It is about making the best of the resources available. Conte has a rather unfortunate habit of taking seemingly enviable jobs in unenviable circumstances.
He had the Italy team dubbed the worst in 50 years, deprived of the services of the classy midfielders Claudio Marchisio and Marco Verratti. He inherited Chelsea after the worst title defence of any Premier League champions and when, within six weeks of the season starting, it became apparent that a quick fix would not suffice.
He has galvanised his champion players, principally Eden Hazard and Diego Costa, but, crucially, he has camouflaged the weaknesses of the others. Gary Cahill and Luiz have been more reliable among three centre-backs than as a pair; Alonso and Moses may well have defensive deficiencies as wing-backs, but Chelsea’s positioning has been so fine no one has exploited them yet.
The sense is that Conte has prospered in spite of the club. Another high-class forward was required to play 4-2-4, but was not recruited. Chelsea’s squad, unlike their Juventus counterparts, is designed to play wing-backs. Conte showed as much by revealing the deputies to Moses and Alonso are Pedro, Branislav Ivanovic and Ola Aina, none remotely resembling a direct replacement and all happier in other roles.
The composition of the group may mean there is a fragility to their renaissance. The thrashing of United notwithstanding, Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City all seem capable of playing a higher brand of football than Chelsea now.
But the fact they are on their coattails when their manager has been deprived of his ideal signings is an endorsement of Conte. Just as the fact that, seven points further back and with the men he wanted, United are not is an indictment of Mourinho.
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