Mauricio Pochettino
Mauricio Pochettino has revealed that Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali are disappointed with Chelsea’s start to the season. The Blues sit in the bottom half of the Premier League table on five points after six games. Despite forking out nearly £1billion since taking over from Roman Abramovich at the helm of Stamford Bridge last year, Chelsea’s only win in the English top-flight this term has come against Luton Town. The newly-promoted side currently sit in the relegation zone on just one point. Following the west Londoners’ defeat to Villa, Pochettino was asked if Boehly and Eghbali have said anything about the poor start to the season.
Mauricio Pochettino said: “Give me time because I didn’t see them after the game. They are disappointed, they arrived at the club and are so excited to build a project. Of course they feel disappointed but at the same time they need to support the plan.”
Pochettino now faces an uphill battle to transform Chelsea’s fortunes on the pitch, with Nicolas Jackson and Malo Gusto picking up suspensions. The former was shown his fifth yellow card of the season meaning that he’ll miss the Blues’ trip to Craven Cottage on October 2, while the latter was given his marching orders and now serve a three-match ban.
When asked if the Chelsea duo need to ‘grow up’,
Mauricio Pochettino replied: “We were talking, we need to grow up like a team, not only in an individual way. I think players like Nico who are so young and feeling the Premier League and is learning, they need time. In this type of game, we are competing and want to win and football is about winning but also players, when they are young, need to learn, and experience and make mistakes. That’s why we feel disappointed as there are too many situations like this and I agree with you too many things like this and in the end we are losing the game and we are in situation we need to change as soon as possible.”
With Chelsea set to miss Jackson and Gusto, Pochettino was asked if Armando Broja and Reece James are ready to come back into the starting lineup.
Mauricio Pochettino said: “I think was now was good to see Broja after nine or 10 months. I think to have the possibility to have different options in the team. He needs to build his confidence also. It’s about to learn, about the process. We are a young team that is in process needing to learn altogether. It is difficult to talk about positives because when you lose it is difficult. We need to talk about positive things, we need to keep the positives in. There’s no doubt with time the team is going to perform. Of course I cannot hide the situation, it’s a situation that disappoints all of the fans, the club, us and the players.”
