CHELSEA boss Mauricio Pochettino hinted his side lacked heart without the ball as the Blues threw away two more points in their 2-2 draw against ten-man Burnley at Stamford Bridge on Saturday.
Cole Palmer gave Chelsea the lead from the penalty spot a minute before the break after Lorenz Assignon received a second yellow card for fouling Mykhailo Mudryk.
Josh Cullen levelled two minutes into the second half before the hosts, who had 33 attempts on goal, went ahead twelve minutes from time through Palmer’s second.
But Vincent Kompany’s Clarets again hit back quickly as Dara O’Shea headed in Cullen’s corner on 81 minutes.
There were more boos after a disappointing home game, and Pochettino didn’t hide his feelings afterwards.
“We didn’t show the capacity, the energy, the anger,” Pochettino said. “Not the minimum to compete in the Premier League. In the defensive phase we concede too much. That is why I am so upset and disappointed. It’s more here and here (pointing to his heart and head) than in your legs to be strong like a group, to be strong like a team. That is sometimes the circumstance for different reasons we are so slow evolving in this area.
“Sorry, but I am not happy with the performance when we don’t have the ball. They are a very physical team, we need to be strong also and have the capacity to recover the ball too much.
“Remember the first half, the keeper played quick into action and the action finished into our last third, into the box. That is to have hunger, to compete. Sorry for my speech but it is difficult to accept not to win a game because it’s a must-win game to attack a different position.
“Yes, we need to accept that and recover the situation. On Thursday we have another game here [against Manchester United] and we need to be with all the energy to be competitive and clear our head now.”
After their 4-2 defeat at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers in February, Chelsea responded by beating Aston Villa in the fourth round of the FA Cup, winning at Crystal Palace and drawing at Manchester City.
Pochettino added: “We miss energy, we miss the capacity to deal with the situation, we miss communication in between us. We remember after Wolverhampton, the team was celebrating every tackle and things like this that increases our level, but today we were not feeling the same.
“Maybe for a different reason, of course. We have clear ideas on where we need to improve. That is fact. That is the reality. We cannot analyse the game in a different way, we cannot analyse different things, that is the key. We need to improve if we want to be better.”
