Chelsea analysis: Cesc Fabregas presses claim for Arsenal inclusion, but defence is a major problem for Antonio Conte

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Vaishali Bhardwaj21 September 2016

After Chelsea were handed their first defeat of the season against a rampant Liverpool side on Friday, Blues boss Antonio Conte called on his players to start concentrating and stop conceding goals.

The only time before that game that Chelsea had kept a clean sheet was in the 3-0 win at home to Burnley before the international break, with Dejan Lovren and Jordan Henderson's strikes at Stamford Bridge taking the Blues' conceded goals tally to six this term.

It is an aspect that Conte is likely to have focused much time on and, indeed, the reason why he oversaw the signings of David Luiz and Marcos Alonso during the summer transfer window.

But if Conte felt his players had heeded his advice ahead of their EFL Cup third-round tie with Leicester City, then he would have been given a shock after he watched on at the King Power Stadium on Tuesday as Chelsea conceded twice in 34 minutes.

The first goal came just after Gary Cahill avoided giving away a penalty when he dithered on the ball only to see Ahmed Musa rob him of possession, before sprinting into action and tugging the Leicester forward down in the area.

Cahill, acting as captain in place of the injured John Terry and absent Branislav Ivanovic, was fortunate not to concede a spot-kick in rather reminiscent scenes of how Leroy Fer scored Swansea's second goal against the Blues a few weeks ago.

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Things soon went from bad to worse for the visitors after Shinji Okazaki pounced to open the scoring in the 17th minute.

Several errors led to the opener, starting with one from debutant Marcos Alonso, who was pulled out of position which left Musa unmarked and able to send in a cross that thwarted the Chelsea defence.

As the ball bounced in the area, Cahill appeared to signal to Luiz to leave it alone - perhaps thinking that Asmir Begovic would deal with the danger. Instead, Okazaki headed the ball over Begovic and into the net as the Chelsea defence failed to react quickly enough.

The second goal was also error-strewn as Pedro first gave the ball away with a clearance straight to Andy King before Luiz left Okazaki unmarked - and from there, there was only going to be one end result.

What will concern Conte now is how to stop the porous Chelsea defence from leaking yet more goals when the club take on Arsenal in the Premier League on Saturday.

While Alonso, who made his Chelsea debut against Leicester, and Luiz both made errors for the Foxes' goals on Tuesday - with the latter later suffering a close call when he completely misjudged a long ball to Musa before being saved by Begovic - it is perhaps unfair to judge them too harshly considering they were playing in a new defence.

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Cahill as acting captain and long-serving Blues centre-back will therefore have to shoulder the blame, especially as he should have been organising the back line - although Chelsea's midfield should have done better to protect the defence in the first place.

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The 31-year-old did make amends when he headed Chelsea back into the game on the stroke of half-time, but Conte may be tempted to shake up his defence at the Emirates Stadium with the re-introduction of Terry, who seems certain to recover from his ankle injury in time

Whether it will be Luiz or Cahill that could make way remains to be seen, but Conte will at least have been happy with Cesar Azpilicueta's performance at right-back as the Spaniard netted a wholly unexpected thunderbolt of a goal to restore parity in the 49th minute.

Conte will also be pleased to see how Alonso did in an attacking sense as he linked up well with Pedro on more than one occasion and delivered a few good crosses into the box too.

Cesc Fabregas, who had only played 32 minutes this season before starting against Leicester, will also have handed Conte something to think about after scoring two goals in two extra-time minutes to help Chelsea eliminate Claudio Ranieri's side from the EFL Cup with 4-2 victory.

N'Golo Kante - who didn't come off the bench against his former side - and Oscar will still be Conte's first-choice midfielders against Arsenal, but Fabregas may have convinced the Italian to at least take a chance on him as he looks to get back into the team.

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Whatever changes Conte makes for the next game, what is undeniable is that Chelsea's defence remains the key issue.

The Italian must find a solution to if he wants to avoid seeing his team teeter on the brink of defeat.

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