Mauricio Pochettino looking to build winning momentum at Stamford Bridge for Chelsea

Chelsea went into the October international break on the back of three straight wins in all competitions. We came out of that break with 77 minutes of excellence against Arsenal last weekend, only to then throw it all away in the final 13 minutes, in a 2-2 draw that felt like a 2-10 defeat.

So now the first task for tomorrow is get back to back where we were before those 13 minutes, and then to keep building the momentum from there. And obviously a win would be nice as well, especially as this is our only league game not against a top-three team during this four-week span between international breaks — and especially as we have just one (1) win in our last twelve (12) Premier League matches at Stamford Bridge (and just four such wins in the last twelve months: 20 games)! Yikes.

“We are in a situation where we are still improving. We’re still far away from what we expect and where we want. Yes, I think it’s important to get this momentum after the games. We have another possibility tomorrow, an opportunity to show ourselves we can keep this momentum.

“The whole team is showing a great attitude [and] I think we need to create our run at home. We need to try to win, we need to start to project the image that we are solid and consistent in front of our fans. We are desperate to show our fans that we can get three points.

“[We] are at the beginning of a very strong team, the mentality is there, much better than we started. We are happy with how we have evolved from day one but still far away from what we expect from our team and us. We are Chelsea and we know our responsibility is massive and about winning.”

-Mauricio Pochettino; source: Football.London

Along with our recent results, our injury situation has been evolving in a positive direction as well, though Reece James isn’t quite ready to start — “He is doing well, training really well but at the moment, tomorrow he will still be on the bench” — and Armando Broja will once again miss out. But overall, the list of absentees is no longer in the double-digits, so perhaps there is light at the end of this long and dark tunnel.