Mauricio Pochettino says Chelsea need to enter survival mode to turn their results around as they gear up for a daunting run that could define their season.
The Blues face Blackburn at Stamford Bridge in the Carabao Cup tonight and then play Tottenham, Manchester City, Newcastle, Brighton and Manchester United in their next five Premier League games.
There is no indication that Pochettino is under pressure, despite Chelsea languishing in the bottom half of the table following a disappointing start to the season. But there is no doubt the Argentine is coming under increased scrutiny ahead of his return to Spurs on Monday.
With Chelsea still struggling with injuries and yet to find a solution to their goalscoring problem, tonight offers them a chance to restore some confidence.
You have to be quiet and be strong — it is easy to blame or say something that will lead to division
“For sure this is a tough moment,” said Pochettino. “But we are not giving up. You have to resist things that go against you and try to survive.
“You have to be quiet and be strong… and not lose your balance, because it is easy to blame or say something that is going to affect other people and lead to division in the club.
“The important thing is to trust the ideas, the judgment and analysis of why certain things have not happened. To help the organisation to be better and to improve and not to make the same mistakes again. The most important thing is to learn from the mistakes.”
Pochettino did not elaborate on what exactly those mistakes had been but admitted there were “too many changes in the summer because of the circumstances”.
Chelsea were booed off again after Saturday’s 2-0 home defeat by Brentford and Pochettino has called on his players to get nasty as they bid to turn things around.
The Blues created enough chances in the first half to beat Brentford but they failed to capitalise and, still vulnerable at the back as Pochettino builds a new team, conceded twice in the second half.
He said: “The performance [level] is good. When we played Brentford, do you think that we deserved to lose? Okay, we didn’t score and we need to criticise ourselves in the way we were not aggressive enough and not capable of scoring.
“That’s why they [Brentford] survived and with one chance in the second half we concede. We need to improve on this and not concede from a throw in, be more competitive and nasty. That is team experience, we need to have more patience.
“At 0-0 a different team sometimes win this type of game in extra time. That’s why we have got to be careful to judge. Our performance is good, we only need to keep believing, if we keep believing we will find a way of getting a result also.”
Tonight could offer £32million summer signing Nicolas Jackson an opportunity to build his confidence after a Chelsea fan told him to “wake up” during the Brentford defeat.
Jackson’s performance on Saturday was heavily criticised by Match of the Day pundit Alan Shearer, who questioned the striker’s desire to get himself into goalscoring positions.
Pochettino has urged Chelsea supporters to be patient with Jackson and said: “Nico needs support.”
