Antonio Conte has stressed that Chelsea need to be "realistic" in their quest to retain the Premier League title this season.

The Blues have endured a patchy start to the current campaign that has left the club with ground to make up on pace-setters Manchester City.

On Saturday, Chelsea claimed a 1-0 win over Bournemouth to edge up to fourth in the table, nine points behind Pep Guardiola's swashbuckling side.

"At this moment we must be realistic by going game by game," Conte told Sky Sports News when asked about Chelsea's chances of catching City. "We have 19 points and we deserve to have 19 points.

"We are first in our group in the Champions League. We went into the next round of the Carabao Cup after going out in the second round last season.

"I'm very happy with this group. There are players who are very honest, players who want to fight until the end for something important.

"Are we able to do this? I don't know. But we will try to stay there. I know very well that, in England in this league, there are six top teams, very strong."

Chelsea face Roma in the Champions League on Tuesday night before entertaining Manchester United in the league next Sunday.