Pulis salutes ´worthy champions´ Chelsea

Tony Pulis heralded Chelsea as “worthy” champions after Antonio Conte’s side secured the Premier League title with a 1-0 win over West Brom on Friday.

Pulis’ well-drilled outfit were typically stubborn in their resistance at The Hawthorns, and could even have gone ahead through Salomon Rondon or Nacer Chadli midway through the second half.

But it was to be Chelsea’s day, Michy Batshuayi coming off the bench to score the only goal eight minutes from time, allowing Conte to celebrate a title triumph in his maiden season in charge, with an FA Cup final against Arsenal still to come.

“They’re worthy champions, they take a lot of credit and could do the double,” Pulis told BBC Sport.

“They’re a wonderful team and they’ve been the best. They had a poor start but recovered from that and have been the most consistent. We gave them a really tough game though.

CHAMPION SELFIES!!! #ChelseaChampions  pic.twitter.com/hMVQqsEHfD

— CHAMPIONS!  (@ChelseaFC) May 12, 2017

“We wanted to make it difficult. Our quality let us down at times. We needed the break.

“It’s the decisions that players make and a little bit of quality that makes the difference, but I can’t fault the players. Chelsea got the goal and they deserve to win the league.

“It’s good working against the top managers, which Conte is. He’s been fantastic. His enthusiasm and attitude but he’s also very good tactically.

“I had a chat with him before the game and he recognised he had to change it earlier in the season, or he might have got changed himself. He’s made it his team. Italian teams are tactically organised and well run. He changed their shape and they’ve been superb from that moment onwards.”