Antonio Conte will primarily be delighted that his Chelsea reign has started with a victory, thanks to Diego Costa's late goal in the 2-1 win over West Ham, but he'll also be reasonably pleased with his side's overall performance. Chelsea lacked creativity in central positions and generated few clear-cut chances, but the structure of the side was obvious, and Chelsea controlled the game for long periods.
"I'm delighted for the performance because I saw a lot of good things, a lot of things we are working on," Conte said in his postmatch news conference. "We had the right intensity, good possession of the ball. We know we can improve with more work, but today it was very important to start with a victory against a strong side like West Ham."
The Italian was famed for his 3-5-2 formation at Juventus and arrived at Chelsea determined to play the 4-2-4 system once considered his forte, but this was unashamedly a 4-3-3, the shape Chelsea have played on and off since Jose Mourinho's arrival in 2004. It might be a new era, but this was a familiar system, with N'Golo Kante the only major arrival. Even then, it felt somehow natural to see him sitting deep in the Makelele role.
"It's not a new system, not any new players apart from Kante," West Ham manager Slaven Bilic said after the match. "I see a side that was very energetic, very compact, was most dangerous on those half counter-attacks or counter-attacks. When you have players like [Eden] Hazard, Willian, Oscar, Costa ... when they have a big space to individually attack their opponents, Chelsea, we've seen them before like that."
As Bilic illustrated, the Blues played a very structured game, particularly in midfield. The major talking point when the team sheet was released an hour before kickoff was the omission of Cesc Fabregas, who might yet leave Chelsea before the end of the month. The Spaniard's game is all about forward running and energy, something that makes him difficult to accommodate for managers who like organisation and discipline from their central midfield zone. When the game settled down into a pattern after around 10 minutes, it was easy to see why Conte didn't want Fabregas in this side.