Antonio Conte might have been disappointed after seeing the outstanding Chelsea run end at the hands of Tottenham, but the Italian remained strong in his belief that his team have all the ingredients necessary to win the Premier League title. The Blues went down 2-0 to Spurs at White Hart Lane on Wednesday.
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Dele Alli was the goalscoring hero for Tottenham, scoring two near-identical goals, and with Chelsea failing to find their mojo from an attacking perspective, their brilliant 13-match winning run was brought to a halt.
What the result also did was keep the title race very much in the balance, with Chelsea failing to increase the gap at the top to eight, which they would have done had they beaten Spurs. At the moment, the lead is still a sizeable, but-can-be-overhauled five, with Liverpool in second and Tottenham in third.
"We are disappointed but also we must be pleased for our run as 13 wins in this league is not easy," Conte said. "Today we lost against a good team, a really strong team and don't forget Tottenham fought last season for the title.
"Mauricio Pochettino has worked with his team for many years and they are improving, and they are one of the six teams that can fight to the end to win the title, or a place in the Champions League.
"Now we have to restart, to continue to work and this defeat is totally different if you compare with our defeats in September, because at that moment we were not a team. Tonight we showed we are a strong team and this is important."
What Conte will also know is that this Chelsea defeat will give the chasing pack – all five of them – renewed hope, and hope, as the Blues themselves showed, can do wonderful things to a team. With Spurs going with a 3-4-2-1 formation, a similar one to Chelsea's 3-4-3, there were questions over if Chelsea had become too predictable.
Conte, though, knows as long as Chelsea keep picking up wins against opposition outside the top six, his team will, most likely, coast to the title. And against such opposition, that formation has worked wonders.
"Every day we work on this system and try to give different solutions with or without the ball and we have found good balance," Conte added. "My priory is to come back to winning. We are working together only for five months and to see we are on top of the table with the same players as last season, we must be pleased with this."
