Chelsea must be patient with Antonio Conte as transition will 'take time', warns Michael Emenalo

Matej Divizna/Getty Images
Simon Johnson18 July 2016

Chelsea technical director Michael Emenalo has told the club's fans to be patient with new coach Antonio Conte.

The former Italy manager lost his first game in charge on Saturday as Chelsea were beaten 2-0 by Rapid Vienna in their opening fixture of pre-season.

Conte only started working with the squad last Wednesday after taking a brief break following Italy's exit from Euro 2016 earlier this month.

Chelsea's internationals who played in the summer tournament in France, like Eden Hazard and Cesc Fabregas, have yet to report back for training, while the club are still looking to strengthen in the transfer market.

Emenalo admits it could take a while for Conte to start making an impact but is confident the team will be ready to face West Ham in the Premier League on August 15.

He said: "The only thing that is difficult for him (Conte) is that he's just come from working with players who understood his methods and it was probably easy.

"Coming from that and going into a completely different new arena to try to introduce your methods again is a little bit disconcerting.

"But he is an experienced manager and understood that. We all know that it will take time.

"We have a mix of players at different stages of their physical development in terms of the preseason.

"All in all, it's a good test. The next three days will be much better and in a couple of weeks we should be ready."

Chelsea completed their second signing of the summer over the weekend as N'Golo Kante completed a £32m switch from Leicester.

As Standard Sport revealed last month, Chelsea turned to Kante after growing frustrated in their pursuit of Roma star Radja Nainggolan.

They have already signed Belgium striker Michy Batshuayi, who has arrived at the club's training base in Austria to start working with Conte, for £33.1m from Marseille.

Emenalo believes the addition of Kante proves how owner Roman Abramovich is still prepared to back the club in the transfer market and has promised more signings to come.

Speaking about Kante's arrival on Chelsea TV, he added: "It just shows we are very lucky to have the kind of owner who understands what we need and is always willing to support that need.

"He has always been very generous with every single manager that has been here and once again he has responded. We are very grateful and the fans should be happy.

"We are building toward something and we are not just looking at what other people are doing. We have our targets and are working very carefully to achieve our aims.

"Kante is an exciting signing for our fans, but especially for the manager because he fits perfectly with the way he wants to play football.

"We welcome a very young talent, who is already very experienced and we are looking forward to working with him. I think he is delighted to come to Chelsea and he will make us better."

In pictures: Antonio Conte's first Chelsea game

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Chelsea are spending the rest of the week in Austria, where they will also play RZ Pellets on Wednesday, before flying out for their tour of USA on Sunday.

Conte is keen to see an improvement after losing out to Rapid Vienna first time out and said: "I learned that we have to work a lot. It's important. It's not easy to play this type of game after three days of training. In these three days we worked a lot on the tactical and physical aspects.

"But I don't like to lose and this must be the same for the players. For now we are trying to find the right solution for the next season.

"The players are working very hard to change the situation, to change last season. In some periods I saw the situation of last season and this is not good because we must change mentality, we must change attitude. But the players want to change and this is the most important thing."

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