Antonio Conte warns Chelsea title defence will be 'very hard' without further signings

1/16
Tom Dutton9 August 2017

Chelsea manager Antonio Conte says it will be "very hard" to fight for the league title if the Blues do not continue to strengthen.

Conte has spoken of the need to strengthen his squad at regular intervals this summer having already added Tiemoue Bakayoko, Antonio Rudiger, Willy Caballero and Alvaro Morata.

But key players have also departed, with Nemanja Matic joining rivals Manchester United and Diego Costa set to leave, and Conte is heading into the new campaign with just 14 senior players available.

Bakayoko and Eden Hazard are injured and the lack of numbers in Conte's squad was made plain during the Community Shield defeat to Arsenal, when the Chelsea boss named an inexperienced bench and threw on Charly Musonda.

Asked if it will be difficult to defend the Premier League title without further additions, Conte told Sky Sports: "Yes very hard. For sure.

"This league is not easy. You have to fight against other teams. This league is different to other countries, [where] you'll find two teams to fight; here, you have six teams which are very strong. You must be prepared to fight very hard."

Speaking about possible new arrivals, Conte added: "The most important is my club knows very well which are our priortiies. I work to try and improve our squad."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in