Rewind, briefly, to the tipping point. Antonio Conte’s initial reaction to that heavy defeat at Arsenal back in September had been one of fury. He was livid, humiliated, crushed and, in the emotional heart-to-heart he conducted with his coaching staff, he questioned himself and the task he had taken on at Chelsea. It took a while for those emotions to simmer down and rational thought to return but then, as he surveyed the scene in the away dressing room, he recognised broken players still haunted by the trauma of underachievement last season, and realised something had to change.
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