Chelsea boss Antonio Conte admits his players "lacked hunger" in defeat at Roma last night.

Chelsea were thumped 3-0 by Champions League opponents Roma in the heaviest defeat of the Conte era.

Afterwards, Conte was asked how he could pick up his players after the humbling.

He said: "My task is to find the best solution to try to avoid this type of game. We have to work together; we need to have the will to dig deep. If we think because our name is Chelsea the opponent is fearful, this is not the right way. We must have a great desire to be the protagonist in every game.

"We must find the hunger we showed all of last season, and sometimes this season. But this season has been up and down. If you are a great team, you must have stability and consistency. At this moment, we are struggling to have this type of balance.

"To be competitive you need consistency, consistency which we have been lacking so far because we have faced a number of problems which have to be strong enough to overcome."

With Manchester United now looming on Sunday, Conte wants his players to rediscover their "fight".

"For sure we have to try to have the strength to understand and to use this loss in the right way. As I have said before, in this season we have to dig very deep if we want to be competitive and fight for something important. If we are not ready to dig deep, we can have this type of game.

"We have to know this. This season will be difficult if we don't quickly understand the right way to go."