Football
Liam Twomey, Chelsea correspondent 6y

Antonio Conte: Chelsea must learn from transfer deadline day 'mistakes'

LONDON -- Antonio Conte urged "all the people who work in Chelsea" to understand the mistakes that led to Wednesday's shock 3-0 home loss to Bournemouth, suggesting that his preparations had been compromised by the club's deadline day transfer dealings.

Second-half goals from Callum Wilson, Junior Stanislas and Chelsea academy graduate Nathan Ake gave Bournemouth a famous win at Stamford Bridge over the Premier League champions, who were toothless in attack and crumbled in defence after losing Andreas Christensen to a hamstring injury on 28 minutes.

Conte was forced to deploy Eden Hazard as a false nine and hand Ross Barkley his first Chelsea start after Michy Batshuayi left Cobham on Wednesday to finalise a loan move to Borussia Dortmund. The only attacker on his substitutes' bench was 17-year-old Callum Hudson-Odoi.

Sources told ESPN FC that Conte's tactical sessions at Cobham ahead of the match featured Batshuayi up front, and the Italian let it be known prior to kickoff that preparations for the game had been "a disaster."

In a postmatch interview with ESPN Brasil, Conte said: "It's important to understand, all the people who work in Chelsea, the mistakes that we did today and the situation that we found today."

Chelsea signed Olivier Giroud from Arsenal for around £18 million to compensate for Batshuayi's departure, but the Frenchman was not be registered in time to feature against Bournemouth and instead watched his new teammates alongside fellow January arrival Emerson Palmieri from behind the home dugout.

Asked if he was happy with the club's business, Conte replied: "It's not important. I'm not happy [with the result]. The transfer market is not important. Now we have to focus on the work. Players go, players come. It doesn't change."

Giroud emerged as a Chelsea target after talks with Roma striker Edin Dzeko reportedly broke down over his salary demands and insistence on a contract until June 2020, which would have contravened the Blues' long-standing policy on only committing to one-year deals for players 30 and older.

There were suggestions that Roma's willingness to sell their star striker sprang from a need to raise funds to meet financial fair play requirements, but the club's general manager Mauro Baldissoni insisted that this was not the case.

"We need to clear things up a bit," he said in an interview with Radio 24. "It was never necessary to sell any players.

"If an unexpected offer arrives, like it did for Dzeko in January, which can be interesting in terms of its size, and if we could have considered ways of reinvesting that money so as not to weaken the team, then you can consider it.

"If Roma had needed the money from selling Dzeko, clearly we would have favoured this, if the conditions had been right, but the club held its position firmly. We had no rush to speed up these negotiations and we preferred him to stay anyway.

"Edin is a great player and we're all delighted that he's stayed."

Ben Gladwell contributed to this report

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