Chelsea News: Antonio Conte is left crushed and on the run

He stared down at his feet, held his head in his hands, eyed the heavens as if praying for providence. No more the strutting peacock on the touchline, or the mad dashes along it in delight. 

He will have to digest over the next days that Chelsea were awful, given a lesson in commitment and confidence by a Palace side who by statistics alone were judged the worst in the Football League.

It was as if it had suddenly dawned on Conte that his team have little chance of successfully defending their Champions title or making a run in Europe.

It had been his selection, papering over the cracks caused by injuries to star men it was clear, yet Conte believed that Palace were there to be taken.

Instead, all this result did was put more question marks against his future at Stamford Bridge. Here was a manager on the run and the road led out of town.

The empty words he trotted out really meant nothing. “We have to give 150 per cent in these matches, and so it was a big loss for us,” he said.

“We have to look at ourselves, build for the future, be patient. Our performance was bad for everyone. We have to find a solution, but I admit the pressure is on. The performance of the whole team was bad.”

Of equal concern to Conte was how star man Eden Hazard was totally eclipsed, and striker Michy Batshuayi totally anonymous.

Chelsea are at home to Roma in the Champions League on Wednesday, and Victor Moses is added to their list of injured stars who will miss the tie. Alvaro Morata and N’Golo Kante are already out.

They were destroyed by the pace of the Eagles’ counter-attacking football with Wilfried Zaha and Andros Townsend running riot.

Successive defeats in the League for Conte are starting to hurt, especially as they had won 15 of their last 19 away matches.

“My soul is bad,” he added. “I won’t be sleeping.”

Palace’s triumph began with an own goal from Cesar Azpilicueta, and the winner from Zaha after Tiemoue Bakayoko had equalised.

Chelsea captain Gary Cahill said: “When you have a bad performance like that you want to put in right as soon as possible. You don’t need to read about it or listen to things. You know yourself as a player when you walk off the pitch whether the game has gone well or the team played well. We all feel disappointed.”

Not so Zaha, back after two months out through injury.

“After you have lost every game before this one you have nothing to be scared of,” he said. “When you are not scared you play with freedom. Continue that and we can start climbing the table.

“We needed that win, and if we can continue to play with that confidence we can beat anyone.”

It was one of Palace’s greatest wins and Zaha in his free role, with Townsend supporting him, provided the movement that so unsettled Blues.

Zaha added: “Me and Andros were just running all over the place. We were asked to move inside instead of staying out wide. It means we don’t have to defend so much. We showed we can be a good team.”

They were sound tactics from manager Roy Hodgson, who said: “Zaha doesn’t have a specific role as such, we gave him the liberty to play where there is more space, and not stay pinned on the wing.

“He’s full of pure, raw talent, and is coming back to the kind of form that saw me select him for England five years ago.”

Palace were hungrier and had a fever in their football that set Selhurst Park alight, and Hodgson added: ‘The atmosphere was fantastic, we showed we could pass the ball, and compete with the team who last season were the best in the country. And we showed we have players in the team who are good footballers.”

CRYSTAL PALACE (4-1-4-1): Speroni 7; Ward 6, Dann 7, Sakho7, van Aanholt 6; Milivojevic 6; Townsend 7, Cabaye 6, (Riedewald 84), McArthur 6 (Fosu-Mensah 84), Schlupp 7 (Puncheon 74, 7); Zaha 8. Booked: Milivojevic, Dann. Goals: Azpilicueta 11 og, Zaha 44. NEXT UP: Newcastle (a) Sat, PL.

CHELSEA (3-4-2-1): Courtois 6; Azpilicueta 6, Luiz 6, Cahill 6; Moses 6 (Zappacosta 39, 6), Fabregas 6, Bakayoko 6, Alonso 6; William 6 (Musonda 64, 6), Hazard 5; Batshuayi 5 (Pedro 57, 6). Goal: Bakayoko 18. NEXT UP: Roma (h) Wed, CL.