Chelsea manager Mauricio Pochettino has urged his side to be prepared for a crucial Premier League game against West Ham United United on Sunday.
The Blues secured a 2-0 victory over Tottenham Hotspur with goals from Trevor Chalobah and Nicolas Jackson on Thursday. The win propelled the London outfit to the eighth spot on the league table with 51 points from 34 matches.
The Hammers have been impressive this season and are currently behind Chelsea, occupying the ninth spot with 49 points from 35 games.
Pochettino has highlighted some qualities which his team could face against West Ham and charged his side to be battle-ready for the game while hoping some of his injured players will return to action ahead of the clash.
Pochettino said: “It is the most dangerous game because now we have to keep the same mentality for Sunday. We are playing a team who are so strong, have physicality and West Ham are having a fantastic season and have been competing in Europe.
“For us, we need to recover the players. We do not have too many options to add fresh people to the squad and they have had the whole week to prepare. That is why the most dangerous games are coming.
“The good thing is the players who are going to return from injuries, they really know and feel that they need to make the effort. It is not because you are a big name that you have the right to play in the way you want. I think that is the most important thing that we learned from [Tottenham Hotspur].”
Lesson learnt from Tottenham game
Pochettino further explained some of the key things his team picked from Tottenham’s game and defended the performances of his side in the game.
He continued:”We learned it is not about quality because when you are at Chelsea we suppose you have the quality. The most important thing is to work for the team, to give your best and be at your best because if you do not compete and your level is 50 per cent, then it is better for us to have someone with less quality or is maybe younger but is competing at their best and at 100 per cent.
“That’s happened during the season, where we had a lack of players and sometimes they were not at their best [physically] to compete and really get the result we deserved. When you come from an injury, you always need time to build your condition to play at your best. Because of different circumstances or setbacks, we never had the whole team at our best. That is the difficult thing that sometimes explains why we have been inconsistent during the season.
“We cannot blame the players, it is the circumstances that happened. The players want to give their best and for different circumstances, they cannot express themselves on the pitch. But of course, it is important that against Tottenham we showed that if we play in this way and compete in this way, we can achieve what we want.”
