Antonio Conte calls Alvaro Morata 'a good buy' after debut in Chelsea defeat

Antonio Conte calls Alvaro Morata 'a good buy' after debut in Chelsea defeat
Posted by Ezeudoye Samuel on July 25, 2017

Chelsea coach Antonio Conte praised the battling contribution of new striker Alvaro Morata after his debut in Tuesday's 3-2 defeat to Bayern Munich in Singapore, while Bayern boss Carlo Ancelotti hailed his own newcomer James Rodriguez.

Morata came on as a 63rd-minute substitute in the International Champions Cup clash with Chelsea trailing 3-1 and had a hand in the Blues' second goal, scored by Michy Batshuayi.

"It's too early to speak about the impact of Morata," Conte said. "He has only been with us for two days and he needs time to work and find his feet and to understand our way of playing.

"But he showed a will to win, to fight and adapt to our style of play. For us, he's a good buy. We need to give him time to adapt, but we must be pleased with his performance today."

Chelsea were overrun in the first 30 minutes and fell three behind to Bayern, but Conte played down the significance of his side's sluggish start.

"For sure, to lose three goals in half an hour is difficult," he said. "Despite this, the players' response was very good because we didn't give up.

"Our start wasn't good but I think the players showed great willingness to try and change the result. I'm not too worried because we are still in preseason, we are working very hard and Bayern is one of the top clubs in the world."

Earlier in the day, Chelsea fans had been rocked by the news that Brazilian winger Kenedy had been sent home following his offensive social media posts about China.

"It's a pity because the player was sorry about this situation," Conte said. "It's a difficult situation for the club and this is why we made this decision.

"The player understood his mistake and is sorry for what happened. Now, we must go on."

Ancelotti, meanwhile was delighted with the performance of his new attacking midfielder James Rodriguez, who came close to scoring several times and looked lively throughout.

"His performance was good," Ancelotti said. "He had a lot of opportunities and linked well with the other players.

"It doesn't matter that he didn't score. It's important for him to be able to find the right combination with the other strikers and he combined really well with Thomas Muller, Robert Lewandowski and Franck Ribery."

Like Conte, Ancelotti brushed off the significance of Chelsea's slow start, having seen his side suffer a 4-0 defeat to AC Milan.

"I was surprised that we conceded four times against Milan," he said. "These games in this period are not so real. The defensive organisation of Chelsea is always really good.

"Maybe today, they had more problems and Conte tried different players. I'm sure that Chelsea will still have a really good season with good defensive organisation."