Chelsea boss Antonio Conte recently spoke about the importance of a potentially season defining clash against Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday.
In the pre-match press conference leading up to the clash against Tottenham Hotspur at Stamford Bridge, the Italian insisted that it would be extremely difficult, but not impossible for Chelsea to qualify for the UEFA Champions League if they failed to beat Spurs on Sunday, with his own job on the line as well.
As things stand, Chelsea are currently fifth on the table, a good five points behind fourth placed Tottenham, who have 61 points to their name. A win would take them to within two points of their cross town rivals, and still keep them in the race to make it to Europe’s top competition.
On being asked of the importance of Saturday’s fixture, the Chelsea boss said “This is an important game for us and our target for the final stage of the season is to try and reach a place in the Champions League, and to then reach the final of the FA Cup.”
He went on to add that these were their targets for the remainder of the campaign and that failing to secure all three points at Stamford Bridge on Sunday against Tottenham would make qualification for the Champions League next season significantly difficult for Chelsea.
However, the Chelsea manager didn’t completely rule out the possibility of qualifying in that scenario. “Nothing’s impossible. In this run, I put Liverpool as well. But for sure, we have to try to win every game, don’t make a lot of mistakes — don’t drop points. It will be very important in this final of the season.”
While the Italian may be relieved that Harry Kane isn’t likely to feature against his side on Sunday, he will have some of his own selection headaches for this tie, as Thibaut Courtois and Andreas Christensen are both in the race to recover in time, while Ethan Ampadu and David Luiz have been ruled out completely.
After Tottenham, Chelsea face West Ham, Southampton, Burnley, Swansea, Huddersfield, Swansea, a key clash against Liverpool and then Newcastle. Five of those teams are fighting for survival while Liverpool are also in the race to finish in the top four and this is certainly shaping up to be an extremely exciting end to the season on both ends.
