Chelsea head coach Maurizio Sarri doubts his team is good enough to win the Premier League title this season but is not likely to dip into the transfer market in a quest for improvement.
The Blues are unbeaten under Sarri since losing 2-0 to Manchester City in the Community Shield on August 5.
After 10 Premier League matches, Chelsea are just two points adrift of Liverpool and City at the summit, with all three clubs yet to suffer defeat.
Despite things seemingly going well at Stamford Bridge under the new regime, Sarri is convinced Chelsea can improve further, though he is not planning to bring in reinforcements when the January transfer window opens.
"No, I have to think I only have to help these players to improve," Sarri told reporters ahead of Sunday's visit of Crystal Palace.
"It is too easy to go into the market for every problem. I think we need to improve and we need to improve with these players because they can improve.
Maurizio Sarri has been nominated for the 's Manager of the Month award for October! More November 2, 2018
"I didn't ask anything about it [new players in January] to my club at the moment because at the moment I think we can stay with these players and be competitive. Maybe not for the top [of the table], but we have to try to arrive close to the top.
"I have to think to improve my players. It is my work, I think. The market, is [for] the club. I can say to the club my opinion about what I think I need, but my job is to try to improve my players."
Sarri was also asked what issues he had to contend with in previous jobs at Empoli and Napoli and he immediately pointed to problems when defending, something he wants to develop at Chelsea.
"I think we have the same problems, but the quality of the players is very high so they are able to win matches against a good defence," he said.
"In the future we need to become a very solid team. If we want to be competitive and win something, then we need to be a solid team.
"If you look at the top of the table, City only conceded three and second-place [Liverpool] conceded four. It is important to be solid to be competitive.
"We need to improve, I think, recovering the ball in the other half. We need to press in the opponent's half.
"We need to recover immediately the lost ball. If I need to recover immediately the lost ball, we need to have good positions over the [half-way] line in the defence.
"Sometimes we are in the wrong positions like in the last matches, so it is impossible to recover the ball and not to give spaces to the opponent for the counter-attacks."
