Antonio Conte – Why I Changed Formation To 3-4-3

Manager of Chelsea Antonio Conte has revealed why he decided to change to the 3-4-3 formation.

Chelsea started the season using a 4-2-4 system, a formation that Conte had used in Italy during his time at Bari but keeping clean sheets became a problem for Chelsea at the beginning of the season and the club suffered back to back defeats to Liverpool and Arsenal and this prompted Conte to rethink his strategy.

He made the change to 3-4-3 with Marcus Alonso and Victor Moses serving as wing backs and the result has been fantastic as Chelsea have gone on a run of five premier league wins scoring 16 goals and conceding none.

Conte speaking to Chelsea’s website revealed he was happy to find the right balance. He said

“We started the season with another system because the idea in my mind was that I wanted to play with the 4-2-4, and then we switched with 4-3-3 and we played also in the same way like last year, 4-2-3-1.

“I noticed in some circumstances we didn’t have the right balance because when you concede more goals than your opponent and even more chances to score a goal, it is never a good thing. For this reason, we switched to the new system of 3-4-3 and I think this is a good fit for our squad because also we have the strikers adapted for this system.

“I thought it would improve us offensively as well as defensively and we didn’t lose our offensive situation. In this way we have increased it because we scored many goals and created a lot of chances to score the goals and also if you maintain the clean sheet, I think this is the right way.”