by Mauricio Pochettino has claimed Chelsea are in the top four – and says he has the statistics to back it up.
Chelsea will start the weekend in 11th place in the Premier League but the Chelsea manager believes only “small details” have relegated them to that position, as he suggests he knows why the club has suffered a crisis hurt before he refuses to elaborate.
Pochettino was strong ahead of Burnley’s visit to Stamford Bridge on Saturday, where Pochettino was barracked during the previous game.
Mykhailo Mudryk’s substitution in the FA Cup quarter-final against Leicester City before the international break was criticized by chants of ‘you don’t know what you’re doing’ in which the club’s fans’ advisory board refused to criticize co-owners Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali in a letter ‘issued by the Chelsea Support Trust.
A civil war is hardly a success in the stands but Pochettino was adamant that he not only knew what he was doing but that a painful first season would turn young, inexperienced players into winners.
“When we signed we knew the challenge would be to help not just one player but maybe 10,” he said. “That is why we are always calm and relaxed, and supporting the project.
“Because we are not calm and analyze every situation in the way we are working, I promise you that you would be talking today with another coach. If things were different maybe today we wouldn’t be here.
“We want the best for the club – the fans can’t be confused about this – and because we care we behave like this. They may feel it is wrong or right but we know what we are doing.
“Of course we want to win the Premier League and it will come one day. But if not, another training team will surely come to win it because this process needed to happen the way it is happening. Unless it’s impossible to grow.”
Pochettino turned to the club’s number crunching department to give statistical backing to such a claim.
“In football today we are talking about new technology and data,” he said. “If you look at all the parameters used on radio, television and newspapers we should be in the top four.
“But for various reasons we’re not there because you can shoot 20 times and if you don’t score and – like against Leicester – you only get one shot on target and concede two goals, that’s football.
“What does all the data mean? That we are in a good way. And the ways we need to improve are the little details that you can only get in time and experience playing together.
“It’s easy to find the data when you want to ‘kill’ someone but also when the data is good and it shows that the team is doing well but, for various reasons, the you deserve to get results you can trust. the process.”
The statisticians support his claims, to some extent. In terms of expected goals (xG), Chelsea top the table in terms of the quality of chances they create.
Has the highest xG in the league per shot taken (0.142), with an xG of 50.6 from 357 shots in the Premier League so far this season. Pochettino’s side are also fourth in the table for their potential goal difference, with only Arsenal, Manchester City and Liverpool ahead of them in this metric.
The reason they remain in mid-table, however, is to change their chances. Chelsea are the fourth poorest in the league when they finish, having scored 47 goals when they were expected to score 50.6. Only three teams have a worse difference between what they were expected to score and what they have scored.
Meanwhile, Enzo Fernández is likely to start against Burnley despite only returning from international duty with Argentina on Thursday. Left-back Ben Chilwell is a doubt with a knee problem sustained playing for England against Belgium on Tuesday.
Trevoh Chalobah, Carney Chukwuemeka and Robert Sánchez are also being treated while Levi Colwill, Wesley Fofana, Reece James, Romeo Lavia, Christopher Nkunku and Lesley Ugochukwu are sidelined.
Lavia has been told his season is already over and the fear is that James could suffer the same fate, being ruled out of the England squad for Euro 2024.
Did Pochettino expect to be able to pick him up before the end of the campaign? “I don’t know,” he admitted. “It’s hard to say something because I don’t want you to go ‘but oh, you said this’.”
Was it also known why there were so many injuries in 2023-24? “Yes but this is not a moment to talk,” said Pochettino. “We know why but we cannot explain. Maybe never or maybe one day but for now we have to be calm and be strong.
“We have a very good organization that is trying to solve all the problems but it’s always like a process, like the process of playing well – to solve the situation you always need time. In time we will be able to anticipate the problems we have.”
