Mauricio Pochettino insists that hard work and building confidence on the training pitch is the only solution to Chelsea’s costly and ongoing attacking woes.
The Blues slumped to another miserable home loss at the hands of Aston Villa on Sunday, with Ollie Watkins’ first Premier League goal of the season 17 minutes from time settling a lively contest at Stamford Bridge after right-back Malo Gusto saw his yellow card for a challenge on fellow Frenchman Lucas Digne upgraded to red following a VAR review.
Chelsea have now won just one of their opening six top-flight matches amid a torrid start for new manager Pochettino, and that was at home against newly-promoted Luton.
Their only other victory so far this term came in the Carabao Cup against fourth-tier AFC Wimbledon, with defeats by West Ham and Nottingham Forest plus draws with Bournemouth and Liverpool.
Most concerningly for Pochettino, Chelsea have now gone three consecutive games without scoring, drawing another blank against Villa having already failed to find the net against both Forest and Bournemouth in back-to-back weeks.
The Blues are struggling badly without a proper focal point in the middle of their attack despite spending more than £1billion on new players during their first three transfer windows under the new Todd Boehly and Clearlake ownership, missing the injured Christopher Nkunku.
Armando Broja came off the bench for a late cameo on Sunday nine months after rupturing his anterior cruciate ligament, yet Pochettino insists that Chelsea cannot pile the goalscoring responsibility on the Albanian’s shoulders as he works his way back from such a serious injury.
Of most concern to the Argentine will be the form of Nicolas Jackson, the £31million summer signing who is struggling with the pressure of trying to lead their attack and through his youthful petulance and naivety has already incurred an automatic suspension for collecting five yellow cards in six games this season.
However, Pochettino remains optimistic that Chelsea - who may well open their wallet again for a new striker in January - will bust out of their scoring slump with more hard work on the training pitches at Cobham.
Asked for the solution to his side’s scoring malaise, the boss said after losing to Villa: “Work. Giving trust and then confidence. We have the squad that we have. We cannot change anything. We try to build the confidence and to give them all of the support that they need because they need to perform on the pitch.
“The performance is good, I don't want to say it is excellent, but we are missing being clinical in front of goal. We need to keep going, working. To find a solution, we start tomorrow again for the game Wednesday [in the Carabao Cup against Brighton] and build the belief and the confidence and the trust and hope we can score Wednesday.”
