Mauricio Pochettino has revealed Chelsea were ‘tough’ in their analysis of last weekend’s 4-1 defeat at Newcastle.
Chelsea were well beaten at Newcastle last weekend in a disappointing performance at St James’ Park, one which saw captain Reece James sent off as the Blues collapsed in the second half.
The defeat ended a positive upturn that had seen four points taken from clashes with Spurs and Manchester City, with Pochettino admitting he was ‘tough’ on his players who ‘let down the club’ last time out.
“They know very well how my mood was. I am not here acting. If I’m feeling happy, I’m happy. If I’m not happy, I’m not happy – it’s the same with the players,” he told his pre-game press conference ahead of facing Brighton.
“I think we let down the club because it was our responsibility as a team. Everyone works together. It’s always about putting the context in the situation and it’s important the players see the coaches in a natural way.
“Of course we were tough in our analysis – it’s about telling the truth, to show the things we didn’t do, but it’s not to blame them. We’re a young team – sometimes we have to be tougher, sometimes we have to learn and sometimes we need to be nice and choose how we will express ourselves. We know we need to perform and to perform well to recover the points.”
Pochettino was asked whether beating Brighton in the EFL Cup earlier this season could benefit his team ahead of facing the Seagulls this weekend, but said his focus is on Chelsea’s improvement and not the opposition.
“It’s not [about] the opponent – you can see that with Man City, Tottenham and Newcastle. You could have said maybe the most likely team we could get points against would be Newcastle because they were playing three days after playing PSG in the Champions League.
“Then we beat Tottenham, drew against Man City and lost against Newcastle. We are our own worst enemies.
“In our place, we will for sure compete in a good way and pay attention. But at the moment in this process we have to pay more attention to ourselves than the opponent.”
