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+---- Thread: Conte on the brink after ten-man Blues capitulate at Vicarage Road (/showthread.php?tid=2583)
Conte on the brink after ten-man Blues capitulate at Vicarage Road - Justice Ochie - 02-06-2018
Antonio Conte asked for a vote of confidence. Instead he got the kind of crushing defeat that can hasten the sack.
The Chelsea head coach is under severe pressure now , fighting for his job, if he wants to keep it beyond this season, and make no mistake about that.
Will Conte still be in charge when Chelsea host West Bromwich Albion next Monday? Surely he will but this is Chelsea. Nothing can be assumed. This is a club that will not risk failure and are not afraid of change. They will not risk finishing outside the top four. And they are also less likely to risk it for a manager who has pushed them and tested their patience.
Defeats happen. But it is the manner of the defeat that counts. And this was shocking in its capitulation with Conte later complaining that his team played with fear, without personality, without confidence. That sounded like resigned talk. It was the kind of talk that Roman Abramovich, who is in London, but who was not at this game, will not want to hear. And neither, history has told us, is he afraid to act; especially at this crucial point of the campaign.
Chelsea have won only two of their last 10 games - and knocked Norwich City out of the FA Cup on penalties. With this defeat they have conceded seven goals in their last two Premier League matches: three against Bournemouth at Stamford Bridge and now four, here, against a rampant Watford who were re-energised under their new head coach Javi Gracia.
Watford thoroughly deserved to win; a win that takes them six points clear of the relegation zone and halted the alarming run of results that led to the sacking of Marco Silva as head coach. This was Gracia’s first home game in charge and his January signing, fellow Spaniard Gerard Deulofeu, was outstanding in a rampant performance which Chelsea simply could not cope with.
Deulofeu earned a penalty, facing accusations that he dived, and scored an outstanding goal – one of three that Watford claimed late in the game and after another fine strike from Eden Hazard had drawn Chelsea level. Briefly level. For after their goal, Chelsea crumbled alarmingly as Watford hit back. And hit back hard with three outstanding goals in seven extraordinary minutes.
Chelsea had to play for more than an hour with 10-men after Tiemoue Bakayoko was dismissed following such a woefully hapless display that it led to cruel claims they would fare better with a man fewer.
Bakayoko lost the ball seven times in the opening 30 minutes, leading to three chances for Watford and was yellow carded for a clumsy challenge on Etienne Capoue after another piece of poor control. Just five minutes later referee Mike Dean cautioned Bakayoko again, after he again failed to control the ball, trodding on Richarlison. It seemed a harsh decision and Bakayoko was stunned while his departure was greeted with angry rebukes from the travelling Chelsea fans.
Those fans rallied behind Conte, and maybe that will count in his favour, maybe that will buy him more time but that looming last-16 Champions League tie against Barcelona now appears increasingly crucial. And it was a Barcelona player, Deulofeu, on loan until the end of the season who undid Chelsea and Conte. They could not cope with his pace, or that or Richarlison, who bizarrely burst into tears after being substituted, while their defence was physically dominated by a resurgent Troy Deeney.
It was Deeney who scored the opening goal, driving the ball home from the penalty spot, which sparked a dubious celebration from him that may lead to questions being asked by the Football Association. Not smart from a man who has served lengthy bans this season. The penalty came as Deulofeu ran onto a through ball from Daryl Janmaat with goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois hurtling from goal. There was contact, but did Deulofeu make the most of it? Chelsea protested. Dean stood
With Bakayoko’s departure Conte, who rested Marcos Alonso and later suggested he got his team selection wrong, as he also started without a striker before bringing on new signing Olivier Giroud, sacrificed the fit-again Willian. On came Cesc Fabregas to provide some ballast but it was not until late on when Hazard sparked into life that Chelsea threatened. Firstly he dribbled into the area, cutting the ball back to Fabregas, who shot weakly. Then Hazard stole possession, cut inside onto his right foot and bent a superb 25-yard shot around goalkeeper Orestis Karnezis and into the net.
Would that be the late salvation? The unlikely comeback from the 10-men? Could they even go on and win it? Instead the exact opposite happened. Watford were stung into action and hit back. Hard. Very hard. Firstly Janmaat, of all people, restored the lead with a quite brilliant goal as he ran in from the right, evading two challenges, played a one-two with substitute Roberto Pereyra, evaded two more half-hearted challenges and side-footed his shot back across Courtois.
It was a stunning strike and then, remarkably, there was another with Deulofeu sprinting from his own half and as David Luiz – making his first Premier League start since October – and Gary Cahill backed off he accepted the invitation to carry on and stroked the ball low into the corner of the goal.
That sealed it. But there was still more to come with another lovely strike as Pereyra running onto Abdoulaye Doucoure’s pass before simply hammering a powerful cross-shot that flew past a shell-shocked Courtois.
It meant Chelsea have now lost their last seven league games when they have been trailing at half-time. It also secured Watford’s biggest-ever Premier League win and one of Chelsea’s biggest and most humiliating defeats in the Abramovich era. For Conte the heat is on.