Antonio Conte blames tiredness for Chelsea display in Leicester draw

Saturday 13 January 2018 18:53, UK

Antonio Conte blamed tiredness for Chelsea's lacklustre performance in their 0-0 draw with Leicester at Stamford Bridge.

Having played Arsenal in the Carabao Cup semi-finals on Wednesday evening, the home side struggled to get going and were fortunate not to be behind at half-time after Leicester created several good opportunities.

Chelsea did improve slightly after the 68th-minute dismissal of Ben Chilwell, but they still rarely tested Foxes 'keeper Kasper Schmeichel.

Conte said: "Everyone is frustrated after another 0-0. We played the game against Arsenal on Wednesday night and didn't have a lot of time to recover.

"I saw many players were very tired and they didn't recover from the Arsenal game. But at the same time I saw great will and desire to win the game.

"When you play every three days you have to make rotation. We did this. In the FA Cup we played with one team, in the Carabao Cup we played another team, and today we played almost the same team as Wednesday. But to play in this busy period is not simple and you must have a big squad to face all competitions."

Asked whether his squad is big enough, Conte said: "My answer is always the same. I am a coach and I give my opinion to the club and the club then see and make the best decision to the team."

Striker Alvaro Morata struggled to make any impact and failed to score for the fifth match in a row.

But Conte said: "The problem is not only for Morata. The problem is for all the team. It's not important who scores, but to score. In this moment we are finding a lot of difficulty to score because there is not a lot of quality in our finishing."

Chelsea were forced into a change in the first half when Gary Cahill went off with an injury, but Conte said it is "not serious".