It has taken Chelsea six days to achieve consecutive wins, a feat they managed only once last season. Yet there is a sense that Antonio Conte must still work to ensure the players that endured that grim campaign do not look back and dwell.
At the end of Saturday’s 2-1 comeback at Watford the Italian made a pointed effort of embracing every player. His arrival should mean a clean slate but the risk of a hangover will lurk a little longer and he believes some still need their confidence restored.
There was also evidence that remnants of the problems that resulted in that 10th-place finish remain in an ageing team requiring further enforcements if a title challenge is to materialise.
“Listening, reflecting on the past always leaves you sad,” Conte said. “You can lose all your confidence. So, for this reason, it is important in these two games to win. You can continue to work, to trust in the work and to lift the confidence of the players because it is mostly the same squad as last season.”
But why make such a concerted effort to hug it out when most of his contemporaries insist a manager must keep some distance from the players?
“I think that my experience as a former player helps me in this situation. It helps me to understand when a player needs a hug and when a player needs a bit of pressure. I think also that it’s important to create the right feeling because me and my staff try to give them 110% in our work every day and, for this reason, I also ask this of my players.”
Watching Conte’s eccentric sideline reactions – the frenzied hand movements, the incessant roaring – is an exhausting experience. He looks more tired than some players come full-time, eager to find a quiet corner to close his eyes and rest his voice.
“Usually when my team play, I play with them. I try in every moment to suggest the right pass or the right position and it is important because sometimes when the ball is on one side it is, for example, important to push out.
“Or when, at the end of the game, we played 4-2-4 to stay wide with two wingers. It’s not easy. But it is important to support the players and sometimes I know that they hear these things and sometimes they choose not to.”
Few could argue against his winning mentality already taking hold, though. As the motto at Conte’s former club Juventus says, fino alla fine. Until the end.
It would be easy to put their late turnarounds, following on from the comeback against West Ham last Monday, down to the extra fitness sessions during pre-season, especially when Conte’s opposite number here, Walter Mazzarri, intimated some of his players are not up to scratch and faded at 70 minutes.
But that would be ignoring the disjointed nature of Chelsea’s performance for much of the afternoon. Several creases need to be ironed out and the pallid manner of their play, which meant the Hornets were marginally better before Conte’s formation change, suggests a couple of changes in personnel are required.
While N’Golo Kanté’s qualities have fitted seamlessly, the midfielders in front of him remain a cause for much frustration. Pedro was aimless, Nemanja Matic laboured and Oscar drifted in and out of the action. Defensively they were solid but with César Azpilicueta the only one under 30 and few fringe options, that is another department in need of strengthening.
Then again a winner seemed inevitable once the substitute Michy Batshuayi scored his first goal for the club and Conte was excitedly telling his players to stop celebrating and get on with earning all three points.
One train of thought is that the manager would like to play the 4-2-4 system he finished with from the start but some players are not ideally suited. Cesc Fàbregas offered a creative spark that was conspicuously absent, setting up Diego Costa for the 87th-minute winner, but there was little guile before his introduction from the bench.
Costa will be the acid test of Conte’s man-management skills. Wherever the striker goes, controversy follows and it must leave a bitter taste in opponents’ mouths when he is lucky to be on the pitch and then scores the winning goal. Booked again for dissent, he attempted to win a free-kick with a preposterous dive that went unpunished.
Yet conversely Costa told Brazilian media last week that he feels victimised. Conte has discussed the striker’s approach but would rather “keep with me what I say” and it does not require a degree in psychology to recognise how important they will be to each other.
“Diego must be focused on the game,” Conte said. “On the game. I don’t want him to focus on other players, other managers or the press or people that talk badly about him. He must just stay very focused on the game because, for me, the game and performance is the most important thing.
“The others are only blah, blah, blah. It’s important to pay attention during the game because he is an important player and he can score a lot of goals. So I want him to put himself in the game, not to think of other situations. It’s not good for me, it’s not good for him and it’s not good for Chelsea or the fans.”