Di Matteo admits ‘flop’ Chelsea strikers need to pull up socks

London: Roberto Di Matteo is hoping that Chelsea would prove themselves as Champions League contenders and the Blues’ strikers would start playing better.

Di Matteo is feeling the heat ahead of this week’s games against Juventus and Manchester City. And after yesterday’s 2-1 loss at West Brom, sources near the visitors’ dressing-room claimed he could be heard shouting: “Call yourselves a Champions League winning side and you can’t beat them,” The Sun reports. “It’s time to change in terms of set-up and selection because we need to go back to winning games and not conceding goals. We have to sacrifice a bit of our attacking options and go a bit more defensive to make sure that, first and foremost, we don’t concede,” Di Matteo recently admitted in a press conference. “The pressure is always there and it doesn’t help when you don’t win. Giving away goals like we did today makes it very difficult to do that. Our defending was very poor today and we have to do better. For three years running this team has had a dip in November and for some reason we’re back in this position again,” he added. Di Matteo is reportedly very furious about the performance of his players and wants to eliminate the bad strikers from the club. “We have two massive games coming up and we have players who have experience of being in this position before. Sometimes you need to be able to win 1-0 and focus on responsible defending to bring the points home,” he said. “We also need the strikers to chip in with more goals because that is what they are there for,” he added. ANI