Antonio Conte insisted that he would have been "stupid" to "play open" against Manchester City after watching his team suffer a limp 1-0 defeat against the Premier League leaders.
Chelsea didn’t have the best of days against Manchester City, and they deserved to get stick from their fans, watching pundits and other teams
Jamie Redknapp says Chelsea's performance at Manchester City was a "crime against football" as they slipped to a 1-0 defeat.
Speaking after the match, Conte defended his approach
"I think you have to accept every criticism, but I am not so stupid to play against Manchester City open and lose 3-0 or 4-0," he insisted. "If I remember well, two days ago, Arsenal played twice against them and you criticized [Arsene] Wenger a lot because they conceded three goals in only 30 minutes.
"The pundit has to use the head to understand when you speak about tactics because I think you must have knowledge to speak about tactics and not only to speak in a stupid way."
Conte also praised his players' efforts despite the gulf in class between the teams.
He said: "They followed my instructions. We prepared the game in this way, [not to] concede space between the lines. When you play against Manchester City you have to use your brain, otherwise you risk to finish the game in a bad way and to lose 3-0 or 4-0.
"We tried to not concede the space to Manchester City for a long part of the match [and it] was good. For sure to concede the goal after 30 seconds of the second half was a pity because then it was very difficult for us to come back.
"I tried to do something with the substitutions. For sure when we decided to play with Pedro, Hazard and Willian [up front], there is a bit of difficulty to have on the bench players to change the game.
"We tried to change the game with two strikers. We played against a strong team, an important team. It is very difficult to keep the balance of last season with Hazard as a No. 10. We needed in this position two players with quality and to run defensively. I thought Pedro and Willian played a fantastic game."
"I think that we must have a big regret for the defeat against Bournemouth and against Watford, against [Manchester] United but I don't think today because I think we played against a team that [has] shown to be a strong team," he added. "Today they showed the difference between them and us in this moment.
"Twenty-five points is a big gap and I think that we can have regret for the other games but not for this, because I think the effort of the players was an important effort.
"When you play against Manchester City, this kind of team, they are showing fantastic quality but at the same time fantastic mentality. When you match quality and mentality you become unstoppable."
