Chelsea manager Mauricio Pochettino has urged fans to remain patient with the Blues’ project after an underwhelming start to the season continued with a 1-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest.
Todd Boehly and the BlueCo ownership have spent £1bn on players since their takeover of the club last summer but have signed more players than Chelsea have won games across that period, with fans growing tired of the trend.
Mauricio Pochettino was brought in this summer to try and bring change but Chelsea have now lost two of their first four Premier League games, with Saturday’s defeat eerily similar to those suffered last season – Chelsea were toothless in attack and punished on the counter.
Despite the clearly underwhelming results, Pochettino stressed that supporters must give the new-look Chelsea time to figure themselves out.
“That is a process that you need to think a little bit about giving time,” he said after the game. “Today I think we create chances, I think we dominate the game but at the end we were not clinical enough in the last third. We should score if we want to win, and made one mistake and concede a goal. Yes, disappointed but not frustrated.
“This time in the process, always you need some luck in some situations. I don’t want to take credit [away] from Nottingham Forest because we knew how they should play but I think we were not clinical in both areas, there were many mistakes and we conceded and then we create too many opportunities and we dominate and we played in the opposite half and didn’t score.
“When you don’t score, it’s difficult to win games.”
READ THE LATEST CHELSEA NEWS, TRANSFER RUMOURS & GOSSIP
Pochettino’s side were booed off the pitch at Stamford Bridge after Anthony Elanga’s strike saw them fall to another defeat, and the boss admitted he understands the building frustration.
“You can understand the people that came from the past and want to see the team win and play well,” he said. “We are not playing fantastic but I think the performance is not bad. If we had scored in the first few minutes, we had two big chances and we scored 2-0, maybe we finish in a different way today.
“The fans want to win and we need to give the possibility for them to be happy, we need to keep working. I understand we are in Chelsea and you should win every single game.”
He continued: “This type of game will help us to be more mature and learn the competition. It is not only to have quality, after it’s about to compete in a different way. To match their aggression to match energy, to match desire.
“Of course we were better, we cannot say that we didn’t deserve but in football the stats sometimes reflect what you do but in that case we create but we didn’t score, few shots on target and we should have more. That is about the process, all of the team.
“We were not lucky because I think we deserved more at West Ham and today but we didn’t get a point but we need to keep going, be positive and it is a process that I said before, is a matter of time.”
LISTEN NOW TO 90MIN’S TALKING TRANSFERS PODCAST
On this edition of Talking Transfers, part of the 90min podcast network, Scott Saunders is joined by Toby Cudworth, Graeme Bailey and Sean Walsh to discuss the deals that did and didn’t happen on deadline day. They talk over Ryan Gravenberch’s move to Liverpool, why Joao Palhinha didn’t join Bayern Munich, Sofyan Amrabat’s loan to Man Utd and more.
If you can’t see this embed, click here to listen to the podcast!
