“Look at the way we concede the first goal” – Pochettino reveals who to blame for Chelsea 2-2 draw against Burnley
In terms of Chelsea performances this season, the Blues’ first half showing against Burnley at Stamford Bridge today was one of the best we’ve had all year. There were few occasions in which we allowed the Clarets to even think about threatening Djordje Petrovic’s goal, all while helping Arijanet Muric build his career’s highlight reel up until Cole Palmer’s Panenka penalty.
But this Chelsea iteration cannot play two consistent halves. As it often happens since the Clearlake takeover (not that these situations are directly related to the ownership), our hard-fought first half lead was easily disassembled in the second one.
Not even playing against 10 men since the end of first half, made it so Chelsea could avoid their fate of losing points to opponents they should be handily beating. No wonder manager Mauricio Pochettino was so visibly furious about what his men mustered on the pitch after half-time.
“Very disappointed in the way that in the second-half we managed or deal with the situation. We are a team that, when we play in possession and play forward, we are able to create too many chances, maybe not to score all the chances we created. We need to improve our percentage in the game.
“After today, we didn’t show the capacity, the energy, the anger. Not the minimum to compete in the Premier League. In the defensive phase we concede too much. That is why I am so upset and disappointed. It’s more here [in your heart] and here [in your head] than in your legs to be strong like a group, to be strong like a team. That is sometimes the circumstance for different reasons we are so slow evolving in this area.
“That is the key today. It’s not to find excuses. The team played well, yes, we have energy, yes, we go forward, yes, but afterwards when we don’t have the ball we don’t have the same energy.”
There’s some evidence of Pochettino being a “father” to the players, which can partly explain why he’s been so effective developing young talent during his managerial career. But from the looks of it, his patience with our young squad is running out.
“Look at the way we concede the first goal. With one [player] less, they played easily and then we conceded. That is about to realise, we need to compete, it’s different when you play football. But after we need to increase our work level.
“It’s not to blame the players. It’s to blame everyone because maybe we need to be a bit tougher when we have the players. We had only one day to prepare because of different circumstances with the national team.
“We need to be a team with better communication and to be more competitive.”
It was only a few days ago that Pochettino highlighted in a press conference some data that shows Chelsea are heading in the right direction. Even if his statistical read out of our expected goals in comparison to the rest of the league isn’t perfect, he’s also aware of all other stats in which the Blues are not up to par.
Some of these can easily be measured. Better finishing today would have got the Blues in a winning position, as well as winning more duels in the air and not losing the ball in dangerous areas so often. Others are the intangibles that this team is either missing, or just plainly inconsistent when it comes to properly applying them.
“We miss energy, we miss the capacity to deal with the situation, we miss communication in between us. We remember after [the defeat to] Wolverhampton, the team was celebrating every tackle and things like this that increases our level, but today we were not feeling the same.
“Maybe for a different reason, of course. We have clear ideas on where we need to improve. That is fact. That is the reality. We cannot analyse the game in a different way, we cannot analyse different things, that is the key.
“We need to improve if we want to be better.”