Former Chelsea captain Dennis Wise has criticised the tactics used by Antonio Conte during Sunday's 1-0 defeat to Manchester City.
Chelsea arrived at the Etihad Stadium as defending Premier League champions, but they surrendered 71% possession and failed to have a single shot on target against the runaway league leaders as they tamely fell further behind in the race for a top-four spot.
Despite his side's lack of attacking threat, Conte did not call upon a recognised striker until the 78th minute, having started with Eden Hazard leading the line ahead of Alvaro Morata and Olivier Giroud.
"Hazard is not a centre-forward, I don't believe. Maybe [Conte] felt against Barcelona they did well in that system, he felt it could work against City. It didn't," Wise told Sky Sports News.
"When you know it's not working you expect a change around 50 minutes to change the way your team is playing and that was the disappointing this about it, in the manner the substitution came on.
"You've got two strikers sitting on the bench ready to come on and all of a sudden you put one on in 80 minutes and another on in close to 90 minutes to affect the game. You can't do that.
"I think it was wrong in the way they set their stall out and the way they played. It was against a great team and you might as well go down and go down at least having a go."
Chelsea have now lost four of their last five Premier League games to slip five points off the pace in the race for a Champions League spot.
Barney Corkhill
