Antonio Conte has backed Alvaro Morata to come good at Chelsea and called for ‘great patience’ with the striker.
Morata joined Chelsea from Real Madrid last summer for £60m but has suffered a spot start season so far.
While he has scored 12 goals in all competitions, a mixture of injuries and lack of confidence have hampered his debut campaign in the Premier League.
Ahead of tonight’s Champions League tie against Barcelona, Conte has thrown his weight behind his under fire forward.
He said: "I saw great will, great focus, great will to fight for a place. For Morata, this is the first full season in his career."
"In the past with Real Madrid, with Juventus, he was on the bench, the first substitute, on if the striker was injured. For this reason, I think we must have great patience."
"We are talking about an important striker and he is a really important prospect for Chelsea, for the present and the future. He will be in contention for tomorrow’s game."
It remains to be seen if Morata will get the nod to face Barca this evening.
The two sides are currently locked at 1-1 on aggregate following the first-leg of the last-16 tie last month.
Conte added: "In the first leg we played a really good game, almost a perfect game."
"When you play against Barcelona, a team I consider one of the best in the world, if you want to have a hope to win the game you have to play a perfect game."
"In the first leg, we did this and when we made a mistake, we paid a lot for it."
"The result gives a greater advantage to Barcelona but at the same time we know very well their philosophy, they want to try to play their football tomorrow, try to score and win the game."
"We have to try to do our best and we must have the game with great concentration to stay with our heads on the pitch in every moment of the game."
"1-1 means you have to score, you have to win if you go to the next round, or score two goals and draw 2-2. As I said before, we have to stay in the game."
"We know the difficulty we face tomorrow, but if we want to go to the next round we must stay in every moment of the game."