Mauricio Pochettino says he “won’t cry” about Chelsea’s problems as his side misfired away to Bournemouth, amid a growing injury crisis.
Chelsea lost Moises Caicedo, Noni Madueke and Marc Cucurella to injury and illness before a nervous 0-0 draw away at the Vitality Stadium on Sunday.
The travelling supporters booed their team off after a drab stalemate with performances declining and only five points gained from the first five Premier League matches of the season, leaving Chelsea in a disappointing 14th place.
When asked about the disappointment shown by the club’s own supporters, Pochettino laid out the difficult circumstances he faces as manager.
He said: “I think the fans know if you invest the type of money people create in the media, okay, it is true, but this is expectation. If you don’t win it is normal that the fans are not happy.
“But what I can tell the fans is the circumstance, that we cannot change, the reality we cannot change. We have too many players (out), of course we are a team that will be strong if we are all together.
“Even Manchester City, Arsenal, all the teams, with a normal circumstance with all the squad fit of course can compete for everything.
“Why is it different for us? Why? It is because of what? We don’t have all the squad available from the beginning of the season. What can we do? For me, I have nothing to say. The fans can do whatever they want.
“We know what we need to do, we are strong in our belief. We have had bad luck. We had 12 injured today, plus Noni, Cucurella and Caicedo.
“Then we have three/four young guys and two ‘keepers on the bench. Okay am I going to cry, am I going to complain? I need to accept this, the challenge and keep being positive.
“Of course Bournemouth is a good team and is going to compete. Every team is going to compete and be difficult. Fair or not fair, that is the circumstance we need to accept and we need to be positive, patient.
“We are not going to change in the way we are doing things and then we have our opinion, our reality. We assess the team and in our opinion, our reality, in our circumstance, we are doing very, very good things, more than people can expect. But Chelsea expectation is to win.
“I told you before the season, Chelsea is about winning. We are creating something and we need to believe, young guys need to feel what it means to be a Chelsea player and of course what it means to play in the Premier League.
“I can understand the emotion, football is about emotion. If the emotion was of course to complain because we did not win, nothing more.
“The fans for sure they are going to help the team on Sunday against Aston Villa, get behind the team.”
Thiago Silva was very vocal on the pitch against Bournemouth and could often be seen berating his younger team-mates, who kept roaming from their positions in search of victory.
The Cherries were able to counter-attack, needing big saves from Robert Sanchez despite Chelsea creating chances for Nicolas Jackson, Raheem Sterling and Levi Colwill.
Pochettino accepts that Silva’s instincts about disorganisation were right on the pitch, putting the ill-discipline down to the youthfulness of his squad.
He added: “We were talking with Thiago at the end of the game about keeping more relaxed because sometimes defensive players want to help the team to score because the feeling is we cannot score, we create the chance and cannot score and we need to be clever.
“That’s because Thiago has experience, but too many players are still learning about the game. That is the construction and to build a new team, we need to improve. Many rules in football that you cannot write, in this type of game when you are pushing trying to score and if you don’t score it’s normal. If you can’t win, you cannot lose the game.”
Pochettino used only three of his allocated five substitutes on Sunday, with Christopher Nkunku, Reece James and Wesley Fofana among his star players out injured.
The Argentine explained why there were three more absentees on Sunday, adding: “Cucurella, fever, yesterday he was at home and today continues still.
“Noni came from the national team with a muscle problem. Caicedo came with a knock in his knee. We will assess tomorrow.”
