Antonio Conte hit back at pundits for their "stupid" criticism of his tactics in Chelsea's loss to Manchester City on Sunday, but admitted he did not want to see his side get beaten by a huge score-line at the Etihad Stadium.
Conte opted to deploy Eden Hazard up front in the 'false No.9' role for the trip to face the runaway league leaders - a tactic that worked well against Barcelona in the Champions League recently.
But the Belgian struggled badly as Chelsea failed to register a single shot on target in the Premier League clash.
After Bernardo Silva scored seconds into the second half, Conte eventually brought on a striker in Olivier Giroud in the 78th minute before substituting on Alvaro Morata with a minute of the contest to play.
In Pictures | Manchester City vs Chelsea | 04/03/2018
After the match, which Chelsea lost 1-0, Sky Sports pundit Jamie Redknapp accused the Blues of playing "anti-football" and said Conte had "committed crimes against football" for how negative he felt the champions played against City.
But Conte dismissed such criticism of his tactics because he believes Chelsea would have lost by a bigger margin had the Blues set out to attack Pep Guardiola's side.
"In this moment you have to accept every criticism. I’m not so stupid to play open against City and lose three or four to nil," Conte told reporters.
"If I remember well, a few days ago, when Arsenal played against them, their effort was criticised because they conceded three goals in 30 minutes.
"The pundits have to use their heads to speak about tactics because you need knowledge to speak about them, and not to speak about them in a stupid way."
Redknapp had said of Chelsea's performance: "They were completely outclassed. It was such a hard watch.
"It was anti-football, a crime against football.
"I understand not playing with a striker but you have to have some intent; they have good players but it looked like they didn’t want to go forward at all.
"It’s not because City were that good, it’s because Chelsea didn’t want to play. They are much better than that."
