Antonio Conte insisted his focus is on the English Premier League title and not seeing his Chelsea side set a new record of successive league victories.
The 3-0 defeat of AFC Bournemouth on Monday set a new club record of 12 straight league wins, one short of Arsenal’s single-season mark from 14 years ago.
Victory over Stoke City at Stamford Bridge at the weekend would set up the possibility of Conte’s side breaking the record at Tottenham Hotspur.
Photo: Reuters
Conte, though, says the only thing that concerns him is the impact on the table that shows Chelsea clear in top spot.
“If you ask me I hope to continue winning until the end of the season, but, for sure, it is not easy,” Conte said. “I am pleased to see my players with great concentration and focus, with great will to fight and continue in this way. To win 12 games in a row is not easy in this league. It’s a fantastic run, but it’s important to continue that now.”
“For me, it’s important only for the table,” he said. “With these 12 wins in a row we took 36 points and our table position is fantastic now. It’s important only for this. I always thought that the record is not important if at the end you don’t reach something important in your championship.”
Pedro set Chelsea on course for victory with a 24th-minute opener, before Eden Hazard added the second from the penalty spot four minutes into the second half. Pedro added the third in stoppage-time.
The victory was achieved without suspended duo Diego Costa and N’Golo Kante, and Conte believes that only increased the scale of his side’s achievement and would be noted by their main rivals.
“I think today we sent a good message,” Conte said. “In general because I think that a lot of people waited to see if, without two really important players, Costa and Kante, we could lose points in this game. It didn’t happen. I am pleased for this, because I can count on all my players in the squad. I try in every game to make the best decision for the team without looking at the faces.”
Conte opted to employ Hazard as a central striker, forcing 23-year-old Belgium international forward Michy Batshuayi to continue his wait for a first league start since his £33 million (US$40.5 million) arrival from Olympique de Marseille.
“After the Crystal Palace game I said we had a week to work to find the right solution, to play for the first time without Diego, without Kante,” Conte said. “After a week of work, I decide to choose this type of solution, with Eden, Pedro and Willian. I’m pleased for the performance of these players. I think that Michy is a really good player, but a young player, he is trying to adapt to this league. I try to make the best decision for the team, but I am sure that Michy could have the possibility to show his talent in the future.”
Bournemouth manager Eddie Howe said the defeat had taught his side a valuable lesson.
“When you have Hazard, Pedro and Willian counterattacking with such pace it’s difficult,” Howe said. “I think that was probably the thing where we fell short, on the ball we gave them too many times to get into those situations by not being tight enough or good enough on the ball in those situations. That’s something we take away from this game.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier