Antonio Conte has questioned his side’s hunger, desire and will to fight and suggested some players at Chelsea have been guilty of complacency as his team were embarrassed by Roma to surrender leadership of their Champions League group.

The visitors were behind after 38 seconds at the Stadio Olimpico and, despite creating chances before the break, wilted horribly in a disjointed and chaotic second-half display that left the head coach livid. The emphatic 3-0 defeat puts Chelsea second in the group, albeit they were spared further damage by Atlético Madrid’s failure to beat Qarabag’s 10 men in Spain, and with concern mounting over Sunday’s visit of Manchester United to Stamford Bridge.

Roma feast on Chelsea’s frailties to give Antonio Conte further headaches Read more

N’Golo Kanté remains a doubt for that game having not been risked here after his recent hamstring injury, though it was Chelsea’s mentality that most troubled Conte. “My task is to try to find the best solution to try to avoid this type of game,” he said. “But, for sure, we have to work together. We need to have the will to dig deep. If we think that, because our name is Chelsea, our opponents will fear us, then this is not the right way. We have to find the hunger we showed all last season and, this season, only sometimes.

“There is great disappointment for our second half because I didn’t see positive things. In the first half, I think we were unlucky. We created many chances and were unlucky we didn’t take them. But in the second half there is a great disappointment. That was really, really bad. Bad for a team like us. Last season we showed great hunger, great will to do something important. We won the league and did a miracle. But if we want to be competitive this season we have to avoid these ups and downs. A great team must have stability, you must have consistency, and great desire to be protagonists in every game. At this moment we are struggling a lot to find this type of balance.”

Those sentiments were echoed by the visitors’ goalkeeper, Thibaut Courtois, who claimed the team had “dropped our fighting spirit in the second half”. “We have to fight back on Sunday and show that this was an off-day,” said the Belgian. “It’s hard to say what the problem is. Last season in every game I had nothing to do, sometimes one or two saves, sometimes four or five against a Manchester United or a City. But this season it is hard for the team and defence. We have to find that balance. We have to find that mentality of clean sheets and concede chances. We have to react Sunday because this was a bad image of ourselves and we don’t want it to happen again.”

“What I’m most disappointed about was the performance in the second half when Roma had more hunger, more desire, more fight to beat us and clearly deserved this win,” added Conte. “They were the better team in every point, in terms of motivation and hunger. In this season we have to dig very deep, very deep, if we want to be competitive and to fight for something important. If we are not ready to dig deep, we can have this type of game. Yes. We have to know this. Because, I repeat, this season will be very difficult if we don’t understand quickly the right way that we have to go.”