Chelsea's second week of pre-season training is well underway with Mauricio Pochettino and his staff beginning to settle in to life at Cobham ahead of the Blues' international stars returning. The former Spurs head coach has enjoyed more than seven days to cast his eye over the first talents back in action, and even some of Chelsea's youngsters too as he aims to improve his squad's fitness to push the team on to better things after a disappointing season.
Pochettino has already noted that he does not want to give his side any excuses this term, and that begins in training. The 51-year-old wants instensity to be present from the off, with his infamous gacon test, 45 seconds of running with 15 seconds of rest where the distance increases, already implemented.
In his first press conference Pochettino said: "Now we need to be competitive in the training ground or we are not going to arrive on time. I don’t want to make excuses to the players to say first of all we need time to rebuild, we need time to work, we need, we need, we need. No, no excuses and we start to work hard, to manage and drive the way that we want. No excuses. The competition doesn’t wait for anyone and now we are going to start again against Liverpool in the first game to be ready to win, and if not we are going to struggle for sure."
