Chelsea boss bigs up Moses and tells his predecessor: ‘I find it incredible that someone like him has been underestimated’
ANTONIO CONTE can’t believe that Jose Mourinho ignored Victor Moses during his second spell at Chelsea.
Moses has emerged as one of the surprise packages of the season playing as a highly-effective wing back in a 3-4-3 line-up.
But he wasn’t wanted by Mourinho, who farmed him out on loan to Liverpool, Stoke and West Ham.
And Conte said: “I find it incredible that someone like him has been underestimated.
“I could see his potential from the first days of the summer training camp. Moses has important qualities: technique, physical strength, the ability to cover 70m of the pitch.”
Table-topping Chelsea have won six successive Premier League games without conceding a single goal since Conte introduced Moses.
Moses was signed by Chelsea for £9million from Wigan in 2012 and made 43 appearances in all competitions during his first season under Roberto Di Matteo and interim manager Rafa Benitez.
But the Nigeria international was sidelined once Mourinho took over and did not make another competitive appearance for the Blues during the three seasons the Portuguese in charge.
Now he finds himself an essential part of Conte’s 3-4-3 formation that has proved to be a winning formula.
The Sun this week revealed how orphan Moses was taught how to be a top star by Chelsea legend Colin Pates.
Conte also told Gazzetta dello Sport he didn’t begin the season hoping to play 3-4-3 – but the much more attacking formation of 4-2-4.
He said: “My starting choice was 4-2-4. I wanted to repeat the script of Bari, Siena and initially at Juve. Then we switched to 3-5-2 and finally we hit on 3-4-3 because it’s the best shape for this team.
“Ideas are the basis of our work, but you have to take the characteristics of the players into account. I’ve always considered balance a fundamental skill for a team. The two phases, offensive and defensive, are equally important and interact with each other.
“The first defenders are the strikers in terms of winning the ball back and the strikers often work on the movement of the defenders.
“I repeat though: Chelsea are being lauded now, but after defeats to Liverpool and Arsenal there was already talk about failure.”
Discussion about this post