Mauricio Pochettino has just been speaking to Sky Sports after Chelsea’s win over Tottenham.
It was an emotional night for him against his old club, winning in front of his new fans clearly signalled a bit of a shift. And his comments were very open too. He said this was perhaps the first time he has been truly delighted all season with the way his team had taken his message on board.
“I think it’s my first time in the season that I feel so happy because it’s the moment that after 10 months the team start to realise that we need to compete. And today we competed really well,” the coach said.
After yet another disappointing, sloppy start to a game last weekend, it was essential that we competed from the start today. Pochettino told us before kick off that this was what he wanted, and that’s just what he got. Conor Gallagher set the tone with his pressing, and the crowd got behind the team just when we needed them most.
“Competing” means working hard in defence and being brave in attack, and there was plenty of that today, from Gallagher and Trevoh Chalobah to Marc Cucurella and Noni Madueke.
Yet another platform, or another false dawn?
Of course, all this positive talk is useless unless we capitalise on it. So many times this season we’ve played a good game and then slumped back to a bad result in the next game. Hopefully this isn’t just the first time Pochettino feels he’s got us “competing,” it will also be the first time we really start building serious momentum.
Up next? West Ham… let’s hope we can start fast in that one too. We’re not sure we can handle the heartbreak of getting our hopes up yet again before being sent back to rock bottom.
Good result but be conrsistence