Tottenham fans will have been well aware that they were getting a strict and demanding manager in Antonio Conte, but Cesc Fabregas has spoken about his time under the Italian tactician at Chelsea – and it’s even more regimented than you might expect!
Speaking to CBS Sports, Fabregas made it clear that Conte would give very precise instructions to him about where to pass the ball, something he’d never really had before after playing under the likes of Arsene Wenger and Pep Guardiola, who allowed him a lot of freedom to showcase his creativity.
It must have been a tough adjustment under Conte, but in fairness, it sounds like he came away from it feeling positive, which isn’t too surprising given that he led Chelsea to the Premier League title in his first season in charge.
“I think with Antonio, it was the first time that I’ve seen someone know exactly [what they want] ,” the Spaniard said. “It was like going to school. I promise you, he will tell you, from the goalkeeper until you have scored a goal, what you have to do, exactly everything. Maybe it’s in a different way to how I saw football. At the beginning, it was difficult for me, don’t get me wrong. A lot of running, a lot of intensity. Big sessions, double sessions, gym sessions.
“I always based myself on my own quality, on my own vision, I pass the ball where I feel I will be dangerous and where I can hurt the the opponents. I had coaches like Pep who had a lot of positioning game but we had freedom inside of this. With Conte, the freedom was non-existent, he was telling me where I have to pass the ball.
“I’m 29 years old in that moment, I’ve already played for 13 years, I played in every final, I won a lot of things and this guy is telling me where I need to pass the ball.
“You were like a bit like a perfect machine, no freedom but everybody knows what everybody needs to do. It helped me a lot. For example, sometimes if I want to give an assist or a good pass, I was depending [on the other player].
“A player that I loved to play with, Pedrito, [would make] runs in behind, I loved to play with this guy. There were a lot of Pedritos in the team because Conte was teaching them how to exactly make the run and when to make the run. Willian started to make a lot of runs. [Michy] Batshuayi, Diego Costa even Hazard, who was always coming more to feet to play and then be the playmaker, he was running in behind. The machine worked perfectly.”
Spurs will now hope to see Conte work his magic on this group of players, but it’s clear that some of them will find it a very different culture to anything they’ve had before.
A puffed up little man child he was.
This sounds like the polar opposite of to dare is to do. I think we all know how this ends.
Fabregas always was an arrogant little sh*t of a player, so by age 29 I’m hardly surprised that he didn’t like being told what to do…