Mauricio Pochettino believes Chelsea are maturing under his management after the club’s recent upturn in results.
Chelsea have shown signs of progress in recent weeks after following back-to-back wins at Aston Villa and Crystal Palace with a hard-fought draw at Manchester City in the Premier League.
The west Londoners will look to continue that momentum this weekend, when Pochettino’s side face Liverpool in the Carabao Cup final at Wembley.
Asked if there had been a change in mentality at Chelsea, Pochettino said his inexperienced side were beginning to mature this season.
“It’s not fair to say only mentality. Always with young teams need time to be more mature and improve in different areas,” he said at his pre-match press conference.
“I think when you talk about to play football and compete, it’s in a whole area you to improve. Now the team is improving. Maybe we have the chance to be more consistent and I think the team is competing really well.
“I think for me, it’s not about the change. The transformation of the team and compete in a different way. To be more mature and have this a type of process. You need this to happen and to really wake up about the situation, or realise, that when you experience some moments, you have possibility to be and behave different. The team always needs to learn from the good and not so good experiences. I think for us in a moment it was positive.
“After Liverpool, the result was completely unfair because if you watch the game, there were a few penalty [decisions] which would have changed the [outcome] game. Maybe that was good for us, to feel the pain, negative situation, and to be stronger now and to find the way to compete better and to start to see that we need to live in a different way. The spirit of the team you can see. You can see it before the start of the game they are together. Always that needs to be natural, you cannot force it. If they arrive naturally they are strong, but when not forced.”
Chelsea faced Liverpool in both domestic cup finals during the 2021/22 season and lost each after penalties. The Argentine said his team will be well prepared should another shootout be required.
“We are regular [practising] this weeks. Always shoot penalties in training. Some coaches say you cannot replicate this stress in training as the same as the competition. But of course, it’s part of our idea to practise penalties.”
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