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By Tom Roddy
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Antonio Conte believes it is too early to decipher whether his Chelsea side is a contender for the Premier League title, despite being on a four-game winning run.
Conte's side beat Southampton 2-0 on Sunday to see the west Londoners sit just one point off Manchester City at the top of the table.
After an inconsistent start to the season, Conte's change of formation to 3-4-3 has highly improved Chelsea, but the Italian insists he is not ready to talk about becoming champions.
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"It's early for us to speak about title contenders," Conte said. "At this moment, it's not important for us to look at the table. We are in a good position, but it's not important. It's more important to work very hard and trust the work will improve.
"If you ask me for a prediction or an expectation of our championship now, it's very difficult to talk about this. It's important to get through many games particularly in the first part of the season. And then you can see if you can stay up there in the title race."
Chelsea welcome high-flying Everton, managed by Ronald Koeman, to Stamford Bridge on Saturday as the Blues look to keep up with City, Arsenal and Liverpool, all of whom are on 23 points.
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