Conte thrilled with healthy Chelsea squad

Antonio Conte seems to have taken to life in the Premier League like a duck to water, but the Italian admits a lack of injuries have played their part in Chelsea’s purple patch too.

The 47-year-old former Italy manager has made just eight changes to his starting line-up in Premier League matches – the lowest number of switches by any of the 20 clubs, which has surely been helped by a lack of European football.

Conte was this week named Barclays Manager of the Month for the second month running, after the Blues won all their Premier League fixtures in November to top the table – while Diego Costa and Pedro completed a clean sweep of the awards, winning Player and Goal of the Month respectively.

And while Nemanja Matic’s calf problem meant Chelsea’s run of six games unchanged was finally ended at Manchester City last week, the Chelsea manager is relishing the lack of time his charges are generally spending on the treatment table.

“I am very pleased to have had few injuries for so long because for a season it is important if you are able to avoid muscular problems,” he said.

“The traumatic problems are very difficult to avoid, but to avoid the muscular problems it is very important to have a method, a philosophy during training sessions and to work with the players, together with the medical staff, to try to find the best solution to have few injuries.

(Photo by Catherine Ivill – AMA/Getty Images)

“The number of injuries is always important at the end of the season, and usually when you have many injuries you can lose key players and this is not good for the team.

“It is normal if you have a soft training session every day that you never have problems with the players. It is the more simple way to be a manager.

“The most important thing is to arrive prepared for the game in the right way, then if you can find the right solution for the players to work and also to enjoy the training, this is the best.

“My philosophy with my staff is we continue to work with my method we used with the Italy national team and with Juventus, and with Siena, Bari, Atlanta – all my experience.

“It is important to look and understand if someone is more tired than another, or if someone is a bit lazy or not and you can push him. The eye in my job is very important.”