Antonio Conte: Chelsea Making Rivals ‘Jealous’ Ahead of Tottenham Showdown

Man City, Man Utd and Arsenal are teetering around similar positions but the teams from Anfield and White Hart Lane look most ready for a title race.

Meanwhile, Spurs striker Harry Kane believes his team have got the tools to stop Chelsea from securing a record-equalling 14th consecutive league win.

Now the Christmas Break is over, the title has been opened by two teams; Liverpool and Tottenham.

“Can we get on another unbeaten run?”, he said. For me, what it means to be competitive is like today. It was the first round of fixtures in a while when we had some slip-ups with the top six all looking strong.

Again, Walker found Eriksen on the right side, and the Dane’s cross was headed in by Alli, who extended his stunning scoring spree to seven goals in three games and took his total tally to 11 strikes for his club this season. My tip was Manchester City but they still look too fragile at the back.

“For that we feel very proud because the performance was very solid”.

Joe Allen who had a lackluster last season at Liverpool is the leader of Stoke this year with five goals and two assists. Hopefully they’ll be able to make full use of him for a long time to come, and not ultimately be forced to sell him as they were with Gareth Bale.

“We will see Chelsea-Tottenham and somebody may lose, or both could lose two points”, Mourinho told the press. “It’s unbelievable. Everyone is happy to play for Tottenham”.

Pedro and Diego Costa exchanged heated words in Chelsea’s defeat to Tottenham on Wednesday, but the latter played down their row.

It involves six headers and an aimless hoof from David Luiz.

“It is only January”.

“It’s important for the confidence and to keep our advantage in the league. I never saw anyone win the title in February or March”.

Conte, an industrious midfielder who won 20 caps and was a member of the squads that reached the 1994 World Cup and Euro 2000 finals, said as far as he was concerned the Spurs match represented the start of the second-half of the season with nothing won yet.

The challenge for all teams now is how well they recover from the glut of festive games and plan ahead for what is likely to be a busy few months.

Yet the more significant aspect of their victory here was the apparent ease with which they adapted and thrived in a system Mauricio Pochettino has rarely used. He is doing a great job. “At that moment in the Italian league there was only Roma to try to fight for the title”.