Chelsea manager Antonio Conte found himself walking on thin ice after the most recent poor run of results from the Premier League champions.

Defeats to Burnley, Manchester City and Crystal Palace in Chelsea’s first eight Premier League games make for the club’s second-worst start to a league campaign since Roman Abramovich took over in 2003 and the Italian manager is beginning to feel the pressure.

His position at the helm has come under great scrutiny with increasing reports suggesting that Chelsea chiefs are growing frustrated with Conte’s excuses to explain underwhelming results.

In addition to their poor Premier League run and two defeats on the trot, Chelsea have thrown away a two-goal lead over AS Roma in the Champions League clash during the week to eventually claw back to a 3-3 draw at Stamford Bridge.

The British media report that a post-match meeting was called on Wednesday to discuss the underwhelming result which left Blues with a two-point advantage over their Italian rivals on top of Group C.

A report from The Sun suggests that Chelsea officials have started predicting what excuse would Antonio Conte use to justify the poor results after most recently citing fixture congestion and growing injury list as two main reasons behind Chelsea’s failure to replicate the last season’s exploits.

Conte claimed Chelsea were in an ‘emergency situation’ due to the growing injury crisis, while the Italian manager is facing another problem in paradise with his players reportedly turning their backs on him.

In a Mourinho-esque scenario all too familiar at Chelsea, Antonio Conte faces a battle from within the dressing room. Current Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho lost the dressing room in his final season at Stamford Bridge and got sacked for it in the end. Antonio Conte is risking getting the same faith with his players growing increasingly unhappy with the workload.

The Times claim several Chelsea first-team stars are unhappy with the intensity of the training regime and – although still supportive of their boss – they blame the three training sessions a day programme for the growing list of injured stars.

Chelsea head into the Saturday’s clash against Watford without N’Golo Kante, Victor Moses and Danny Drinkwater while David Luiz and Tiemoue Bakayoko picked up injuries against AS Roma that could keep them out of tomorrow’s clash.