Chelsea’s rise back to the top a credit to their players just as much as Antonio Conte

Chelsea manager Antonio Conte and players applaud fans after a match on December 3, 2016. Jason Cairnduff / Reuters

Diego Forlan writes a weekly column for The National, appearing each Friday. The former Manchester United, Inter Milan and Atletico Madrid striker has been the top scorer in Europe twice and won the Golden Boot at the 2010 World Cup. Forlan's column is written with the assistance of European football correspondent Andy Mitten.

At the start of last season I wrote a column where I confidently predicted that Jose Mourinho's Chelsea would retain the Premier League. I could not see any team coming close to them.

Chelsea finished 10th and lost as many games as they won. They also fired Mourinho. And that is what makes football so interesting, the most fascinating sport in the world.

Manchester City have Pep Guardiola in charge. Without exception, he has been successful wherever he has been; yet his City team are currently seven points off the top of the league.

Chelsea’s lead at the halfway point makes them clear favourites to be champions. They have won their last 12 games, a club record.

When you are in a team like that — and I have been in them at United, Villarreal and Atletico Madrid — your confidence levels go up and up and up, especially after you have beaten the teams who are your main rivals — or hammered them 4-0 as Chelsea did to United.

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The problem is keeping your feet on the ground because it does not matter who you are playing, you feel unbeatable and that anything you try will come off.

It does not matter which players are missing, you feel that you are strong enough and that confidence is infectious.

Chelsea did not have Diego Costa, their top scorer, against Bournemouth on Monday, yet it was not a problem.

When morale is so high, it is a great time to introduce a young player for their debut because they will feel the buzz of the team, but these situations are rare.

Very, very few teams in a top league win 12 straight games as Chelsea have done, but they impress me because they seem united as a team — which they did not a year ago.

I know people pick out Diego Costa or Pedro or Eden Hazard, but what their coach Antonio Conte does best is create teams.

He did it at Juventus, where they were built on a brilliant defence, with great counter-attacking ability.

He reminds me of Mourinho in this way, who also shares the characteristic of being very intense.

Given the decline of Serie A, it was a huge achievement for an Italian side to reach the Uefa Champions League final as Juventus did in 2015.

They knocked Real Madrid out in that year, the team who won the competition in 2014 and 2016.

Conte is the only man to get the better of them in the last three years over two legs.

Much has been made of Conte playing three at the back and how effective this has been since he switched to it after a difficult start.

I do not buy into these tactical obsessions that occupy so much space in the media.

Football is a really simple game and the most important thing, in any formation, is that the players do their jobs, not the formation which they play in.

All of the usual formations have advantages and disadvantages, but none would work without the magic of the players.

Systems, coaches and directors or club presidents do not win games — players do, they are the only people who can make a significant difference once that game starts.

One player who has been doing exceptionally well is Costa, the Premier League’s top scorer.

We both joined Atletico Madrid at the same time in 2007 and I played alongside him a couple of times towards the end of my time at Atletico, but he was still a teenager when he arrived and kept being sent out on loan.

He went to Braga, Celta, Albacate, Valladolid and Rayo Vallecano, which is normal for an emerging player who is not quite ready to play every game for a top team. My departure in 2011 helped create a space for him.

I liked Diego. He was a funny guy, always joking about with the other Brazilian and Portuguese players there, always smiling and completely different to the man people see on the pitch, the fighter with the strong personality. It is like he transforms when he crosses the line.

Another player I played briefly with at Atletico was Thibaut Courtois. He was new and on loan from Chelsea, very pleasant and very shy. I left for Inter Milan, he stayed and had a superb loan spell at Atletico, where he played in the team which knocked Chelsea out of the 2014 Champions League.

A few months after I left Atletico, I was surprised to see an interview with Courtois where he spoke really good Spanish, with all the correct pronunciation, which is not easy for any player new to a country, not because they do not want to learn but because it is not an easy language to learn.

I still had friends at Atletico and they told me he was dating a Spanish girl. That is the best way to learn a language quickly.

Courtois was rated highly enough by Chelsea to go back and replace Petr Cech, one of the best goalkeepers of modern times. He has lived up to his reputation.

Chelsea should enjoy the moment and hope that it continues until they have won the league, because as they saw last season, confidence can plummet after a few bad results and a team can go into a spin where nothing goes right, no matter which players you have.

Unlike now, you just have to hope that your most experienced players can play you out of a slump because it is no time to start young players.

It is the opposite of where they are now and just as much credit should be given to Chelsea’s players for the team’s current success as to the manager who is currently receiving so much of the praise.

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