Mauricio Pochettino has warned Chelsea must stop making the same mistakes if they are to make significant strides and for the first time admitted that too many changes were made at the club during the summer.
Chelsea continue to be besieged by injuries and are yet to find an answer to their goalscoring problems, heightening theories among superstitious supporters that the club are cursed in both areas.
But when the suggestion was put to Pochettino, he made it clear that Chelsea must not seek to shift the blame for their problems that pre-date his appointment as head coach and must instead stop falling into the same trap, having overseen a staggering summer overhaul of 40 players, excluding academy youngsters.
Chelsea’s Clearlake Capital-Todd Boehly owners have spent over £1 billion in the transfer market and have presided over a non-stop revolving door of playing and non-playing staff, sacking two head coaches before Pochettino’s arrival.
That has resulted in a prolonged period of instability at Stamford Bridge, while the inexperienced profile of the squad and the departure of players who understood the expectation levels at Chelsea, along with the big injury list, have contributed to teething problems for Pochettino.
The Argentine has already asked the club to allow him greater influence over decisions leading up to the January transfer window and beyond after arriving at Chelsea in the middle of their enormous summer overhaul and hopes the club can now learn from previous errors.
Asked if he believes Chelsea have been cursed, Pochettino answered: “Things that go against you, you have to try to resist them and try to survive. You have to be quiet and be strong. And not to lose your balance, because it is easy to blame or say something that is going to affect other people and lead to division in the club.
“The important thing is to trust the ideas, the judgment and analysis of why certain things have not happened. To help the organisation to be better and to improve, and not to make the same mistakes again. The most important thing is to learn from the mistakes.”
Pochettino did not have time to elaborate on what exactly those mistakes have been, but did hint at one of the problems when addressing a question on summer signing Nicolas Jackson.
According to Chelsea’s official website, a mind-boggling 40 players, excluding academy youngsters, went in and out of Stamford Bridge during the summer, including 12 new signings and 28 departures, either permanently or on loan.
Pochettino said: “At the moment, I think we are a young team, a young team means too many changes in the summer because of the circumstances and we are suffering - sometimes good and bad results, but performances are consistent.”
Chelsea dropped into the bottom half of the Premier League table following another home defeat, this time at the hands of Brentford, but Pochettino’s team have the chance to restore some belief at home to Blackburn Rovers in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday night.
The game against mid-table Championship opposition also offers 22-year-old striker Jackson the chance to build his own confidence after being shouted at to “wake up” by a frustrated Chelsea supporter at the weekend.
Jackson scored the winning goal in the third-round victory over Brighton and has also netted against Luton Town and Burnley this season, but his performance against Brentford prompted criticism from a number of pundits, including Alan Shearer, who questioned his desire and ability to get into the right positions.
Pochettino hesitated before confirming he had watched Shearer’s analysis of the Senegal international on Match of the Day and said: “I think that Nico, if you watch the game against Liverpool or Dortmund in pre-season, or Luton, he was doing what the analysis was about and what we expect. But for different circumstances, Nico is not at his best today. For different circumstances, but we need to recover the player that was.
“It’s really dangerous, this type of analysis, because it’s one game. I cannot lie, it wasn’t his best, but we need to be fair. If you watch Luton, if you watch Dortmund in pre-season, if you watch Liverpool, you will see this is one player. The Brentford game was another player. I agree with the analysis, but it’s not fair to say he is not capable of doing what we expect of him.
“I believe in him. The only problem is time. I don’t want to give examples, but he arrived at Chelsea in a situation that is not easy for him. Maybe players with more time than Nico, they are not performing in the way that we expect. We need to give time, for sure he has the conditions.
“Nico is young, he arrived this season, circumstances didn’t help him perform at his best. What can we do? Throw him in the bin and say he is useless? Come on, we need to give him confidence.”
