Chelsea could start the Community Shield against Arsenal without Alvaro Morata, hints Antonio Conte

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Chelsea manager Antonio Conte is considering leaving Alvaro Morata out of his starting line-up for this weekend’s Community Shield against Arsenal over fears about his match fitness.

24-year-old Morata has only made one start for Chelsea in pre-season since joining from Real Madrid in the summer for at least £58m, and it leaves him short on his fitness levels that has left his manager weighing up whether to risk him in this Sunday’s annual curtain-raiser at Wembley.

Having starting the 2-1 defeat by Inter Milan on Saturday on the left of a front-three, Morata failed to make an impact on the match and was replaced by Jeremie Boga in the 65th minute.

Conte, who signed Morata for Juventus in 2014 only to leave the Italian side to join the national team set-up, admitted afterwards that the Spain striker is not yet where he would like him to be ahead of the new Premier League season, and hinted that he could leave him out of the starting line-up this Saturday to prevent him from suffering any injury.

“Morata is just starting to train with us,” Conte said.

“He has to improve his condition a lot to adapt quickly into our team.

“He is working well but it has been only five days. Today he tried to do his best but for sure he has to improve.”

Chelsea have already beaten Arsenal this pre-season, securing a 3-0 victory in Beijing last month, but the Gunners have not lost either of their last two Community Shield encounters and beat the Blues 1-0 in the 2015 curtain-raiser.