Why Pochettino finally lost patience with Chelsea’s players: ‘Our worst game’
Mauricio Pochettino’s press conference after the 4-1 loss at Newcastle lasted just over seven minutes and was packed full of damning statements about his Chelsea players.
This was Pochettino drawing a line in the sand with his squad: no more Mr Nice Guy. For the first three months of the campaign, Chelsea’s head coach has shown the odd flash of annoyance in public over a performance or two, but for the most part, he has been very supportive and made it clear that patience is required. That patience — well, his, anyway — appears to be running out.
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Before he even walked in to address the written media, Pochettino had demonstrated his angst during an interview with Sky Sports, suggesting that a normal way to react to such a poor display would be to cancel the scheduled Sunday off in order to do extra training. As it turned out, it was just an empty threat and the day off went ahead as planned.
But it meant that the moment he walked into the press room, he was primed to go even further in his criticism. Was it all justified? The Athletic has taken a closer look at the key points he made.
“We were not prepared in the best way to compete.”
A sign of just how much this facet of the game upset him was that he mentioned the word (and other forms of it, “competed” and “competing”) 11 times in such a short period. But he was right to flag it. In the first half, Chelsea did show some fight and responded well to falling a goal behind to equalise through Raheem Sterling. They were not perfect, but they were still firmly in the game at 1-1. But the second half was a complete collapse, an embarrassing surrender.
“Sometimes it is like, ‘OK, we play Manchester City and everyone is going to be focused on us, we are going to fight until the end’. But now we need to translate. The big teams perform every week or every three days in this way. That is a thing we need to set in the team.”
The lack of consistency in performances, let alone results, has been a common theme. There has been no greater gulf in their application than the way they fought to get a 4-4 draw against defending champions Manchester City a fortnight ago and then what happened at St James’ Park. Maybe all the praise that followed and talk of Chelsea being on the rise went to their heads a little.
Yet this tendency to raise themselves for the “big games” only to fail to back it up the week after has been seen before. In their opening Premier League fixture, they played well in a 1-1 draw against Liverpool but followed that up with a 3-1 loss at West Ham, which significantly also saw them punished for a weak second half. And then, last month, there was great optimism again due to getting a 2-2 draw against Arsenal — it should have been a victory but they conceded twice in the last 13 minutes — only to then lose 2-0 at home to Brentford.
There is definitely something amiss with their mentality and Pochettino knows it. If this problem is not solved fast, their hopes of qualifying for a European club competition via a high league finish will be over.
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“The amount we concede is because we need to be more focused and concentrated. Today we concede the goals so easily. It’s a thing we always talk about and try to be solid in our defensive line. But it’s not only about the defensive line. It’s about our performance as a group.”
Chelsea have now failed to keep a clean sheet in their last six Premier League games and have conceded 14 times in that run. It is a worrying trend, albeit the only teams they have kept goalless in the top division after 13 games are Luton, Bournemouth and Fulham, so it is not just a recent problem.
You cannot point the finger at one individual for this. The players seem to take it in turns to have lapses in concentration. Even veteran Thiago Silva has now joined in with his terrible touch just after Newcastle had gone back in front at 2-1, gifting Joelinton an easy opportunity to extend the lead even further.
There are some mitigating circumstances. It has been well documented that Chelsea have signed a lot of players and had a huge turnover in the squad since the Todd Boehly-Clearlake consortium bought the club 18 months ago. When you add various absences for injuries, it is perhaps no wonder they still look like a group of individuals at times and not a cohesive unit.
For some of them, Pochettino is the fourth head coach they have worked under (Thomas Tuchel, Graham Potter and Frank Lampard all had spells in charge last season, while even former assistant Bruno Saltor was in the dugout for one fixture last April). That is a lot of different instructions and tactical tweaks to digest.
All this does not absolve Pochettino of responsibility. Chelsea often look vulnerable from set pieces and that has to come down to coaching. Despite spending nearly £300million ($378m) on midfielders — although Romeo Lavia has yet to make his debut due to injury — they are not offering much protection to the back four. Pochettino’s favoured 4-2-3-1 is more entertaining to watch going forward than the bleak offerings of 2022-23, but they are also a lot easier to counter-attack against.
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“It was really tough to be there and to try to connect with the coaching staff. It was really tough because you cannot show your emotion.”
Pochettino was banned from the touchline at Newcastle because he has been booked three times this season. It is hard to say whether his presence in the dugout would have made much of a difference, but his lack of discipline does send a wrong message. If he can not keep his cool in matches, then it puts him in a weak position when his players do the same.
For example, Reece James was sent off for two foolish yellow cards at Newcastle, which ended any chance of a comeback, but Pochettino notably did not criticise his captain too much for it, merely saying he was “disappointed”. How could he go any further given he had just been punished for a misdemeanor himself?
“It was our worst game of the season.”
No arguments here.
(Top photo: Stu Forster/Getty Images)
