No Sugar Coating: Chelsea Boss Antonio Conte Prefers to Avoid the 'Bull****' & Tell the Truth

Chelsea manager Antonio Conte has stressed the importance of avoiding "bull****" surrounding his side's fading title hopes.

The Premier League champions were 3-1 winners against Huddersfield on Tuesday night, but remain eleven points behind Pep Guardiola's Manchester City.

That gap could widen when City travel to Swansea on Wednesday night, but Conte has insisted that he has no regrets over admitting his team are out of the title race.

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"I think when you tell the truth, this is the truth," he said, quoted by Goal. "Now we have 14 points less than Manchester City. They have won 15 games and drew one. Instead in 17 games we lost four games.

"When you have a competitor like Manchester City that every game they are winning it is very difficult to think you can fight for the title. Because, 'you are negative, positive, you think negative', it's bull****, bull****.

"You must be realistic, we must be realistic. I would rather tell the truth, than a good lie. I am this way. Sometimes I can be too honest, but I like to speak very honest with my players with our fans also.

"It doesn't mean that we don't try to catch them. But we have to hope we have a big, big slip and then for us to win every game in this league. This league is very difficult and every game you have to put 120 per cent of yourself, otherwise you risk to lose or draw and to drop points."

Conte added: "In your league when you have a team that have 16 games and 15 wins and draw one game it is not simple to think in a positive way.

"We have to look at our ourselves and to improve and have this type of game, because I enjoyed to watch my players play this football."