Chelsea vs Manchester United: Antonio Conte says it is 'very difficult' to lift his players after Jose Mourinho fall-out

Jose Mourinho comes back to Stamford Bridge on Sunday, 10 months after his sacking, with new Chelsea manager Conte still trying to lift the confidence of the squad

Conte admits his players are still feeling the effects of their annus horribilis (Getty)

Antonio Conte admitted that Chelsea are still scarred by last season’s meltdown, ahead of Jose Mourinho’s first return back to Stamford Bridge. Mourinho was sacked by Roman Abramovich last Christmas, after the worst title defence by any English champion in modern history.

This summer Mourinho went to Manchester United, while Chelsea appointed Conte. The Italian is still picking up the pieces from last season’s collapse, trying to lift the confidence of players which was destroyed by what Michael Emenalo called the “palpable discord” between them and Mourinho.

After a mixed start to this season, five good wins but two bad defeats, Chelsea are not yet back at the level expected of them. Conte has always insisted that the damage done by last season was serious and that they could not expect to “cancel” it, or recover from it overnight. After their 2-1 defeat by Liverpool last month, Conte ominously warned that their 2015 collapse was not yet fully out of their system. “We must not forget last season,” Conte said that night. “When you finish 10th, there is something strange. It’s not natural, not simple. I don’t want to repeat it.”

Now, 10 months after his dismissal, the man more responsible for that collapse than anyone else is about to return to Stamford Bridge. While Conte said at his Friday lunchtime press conference that Mourinho had his “maximum respect”, and deserved a “good reception”, he also admitted that his own job of lifting these Chelsea players was “very difficult” given what had happened before. If Mourinho’s second spell ultimately set Chelsea back, then Conte is still trying to put them on the right path.

“When there are these types of season, very bad seasons, because we finished 10th in the table, it is normal that something remains in the players, in their minds, in their heads,” Conte said. “Also because, in this situation, the risk is to lose confidence.”

To exorcise those bad memories from the Chelsea squad is an on-going process, and for Conte the only solution is to work and to win, a message he reiterated here. “For this reason, I continue to repeat: this new season for Chelsea is very important,” he said. “Also, it's very difficult because you must change what happened last season, and that is not easy. The only way we have to change is to work, to work very hard, together with the players, the club and the fans. I repeat: it will not be easy to cancel a bad season like last season.”

Some of the problems that Mourinho left behind are not easy to “cancel”. The effect on morale and confidence is deep-seated. Players who won the title with Mourinho in 2015 have grown disaffected. Diego Costa, that team’s spearhead, was hoping to return to Atletico Madrid this summer, but was not allowed to as Chelsea could not sign a replacement. Costa is still at Chelsea but his relationship with Conte is mixed at best.

Costa is, at least, available for tomorrow’s game having avoided a fifth yellow card in his last two games. This was not due to any specific managerial warning: Conte said such an instruction would have no effect. “I think that it is useless to speak with Diego about this situation,” Conte said. “He knows very well. Diego did not get a yellow card in the last two games. He played the right way.”

Conte was certainly not going to be directly critical of his predecessor-but-one at yesterday’s press conference. Mourinho, Conte said, deserved “maximum respect” and a good reception, even as he did try to de-personalise the issue.

“We will have a very tough game against a strong team, Manchester United,” Conte said. “And not against Jose Mourinho. It's important to focus on the pitch, on the players of Manchester United. To prepare the game in the right way. But it's normal, this, in this situation when a coach or managers comes back to a club where he'd done a lot of positive things. It's normal to talk about him.”

It is impossible not to see this game as a clash between Chelsea’s past and Chelsea’s future. Conte is perhaps the club’s first truly post-Mourinho manager, in the sense that he is working with almost nothing of the old Mourinho blueprint in terms of players and tactics. Mourinho is likely to bring his tried and tested low-possession low block to Chelsea on Sunday, the same system that ground out a 0-0 draw at Anfield on Monday night. Conte’s view of the game is more expansive and more optimistic.

“I think that it is important to win, but for me it is also important to win in the right way,” Conte said. “Sometimes it happened to me at other clubs that we won, but I was not satisfied with the performance. When you win, it is important to put in a good performance for our fans. To win is important, but it is also important to play good football, to play with good intensity, to always show the will to win, the passion.”

To set out to play for a draw is not Conte’s way. “It is right always to play for a win, to start a game trying to win,” Conte said. “I always try to transfer these thoughts to my players. Home or away, it must be the same. You must start the game with only one target: to win. Not to play for a draw. I don’t like this, it’s not football.”