Pochettino preaches patience, patience, patience

Mauricio Pochettino likes to radiate positive energy and manifest togetherness and positivity all around him, and that’s certainly an admirable quality, especially for someone who works in a deeply cynical business such as professional football.

It’s a line of work that demands instant results and instant success — and, seemingly, increasingly more so — even when it’s littered by examples of how results and successes are very rarely achieved overnight.

That of course makes what Chelsea have set out to do with our current project, tearing it all down and starting again, an even bolder, even riskier plan.

But that’s what we set out to do, and that’s what Pochettino signed up for to make it happen. Now we just need the time and the patience to actually make it happen. That of course won’t guarantee success alone, but success won’t happen without it.

It’s a tough thing to keep in mind after just five points from our opening five games this season, with just five goals scored, but Positive Poch would love it if you did.

“We are talking about players and I’d like to make similarities with another club [...] remember, Vinícius [Júnior] arrived [at Real Madrid] and after three seasons or two season and a half and started to perform.

“Always we forget we are talking about young players. You can blame me or blame us and you can talk about tactics but they need time. There’s no doubt we have amazing talent but they need time to settle and for sure they will start to perform in the way we expect.”

And indeed, Vini scored more goals in his fourth season at Real Madrid than his first three combined. Of course, one big difference is that Real did this transition more gradually, which by its nature allowed more time and patience for youngsters like him to develop and grow into their roles. We don’t quite have that luxury, having opted for a more drastic method to this madness.

Photo by Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC via Getty Images

And yet, it doesn’t feel that far away the point where things might start clicking a bit better. Trust the process?

“It’s normal when you don’t win, all are disappointed [and] I am disappointed because I think many teams with less score more. That is why we feel bad. The players deserve more.

“The only way to find what we want is to keep pushing, keep playing, keep doing the right things, replicate it again. I am so happy with how the team feel after Bournemouth and Nottingham Forest, they really care about the club, they really care to win the games, they really care to perform better and I think this week was good to work hard and create good moments every day to translate into competition.”

-Mauricio Pochettino; source: Football.London

At the start of the season, Pochettino made it clear that his number one priority is winning, and everything else is secondary to that, including how we go about doing so. But there is a long-term project here to start and nurture as well — because we’re very much just at the start — and while we’re not off to a stellar beginning in terms of results, it’s still very early days.

“If you ask me if I want to win today, then yes. I want to do everything to do to win. But now I am going to complain about the project? I knew the project. I accepted coming here and now I am going to be strong here.”

-Mauricio Pochettino; source: Football.London

Hopefully some wins start coming and all this becomes a bit easier.