MAURICIO Pochettino admitted he is affected by the reaction of Chelsea fans after boos following their 4-2 defeat to Wolverhampton Wanderers at Stamford Bridge last weekend.
Pochettino apologised to supporters after Chelsea capitulated against Wolves despite taking a nineteenth-minute lead through Cole Palmer.
Matheus Cunha made it 1-1 before an own goal from Axel Disasi had Gary O’Neil’s side ahead at the break.
Some home supporters erupted in anger after Cunha completed his hat-trick before Thiago Silva’s consolation four minutes from time.
Chelsea dropped into the bottom half of the Premier League table as they were leapfrogged by Wolves.
“What we can say, apologise to the fans,” Pochettino said. “The perception is one thing and the reality is another. The perception is that Chelsea should be in a different position but the circumstance, we are not there. One, maybe we are not good enough.
“It’s the most important now to feel the responsibility and of course the organisation and the players that we have. To understand the fans is really important. We want to apologise. We are disappointed like them, but until the end you need to fight together and of course we want to take good results in the future.
“During the 90 minutes you need to try and work together and in the end [the fans] have the capacity and they will be right to criticise or be angry if the performance is not good. The players are young, they need support. I want to thank [the fans] because until the end, they were supporting.”
Pochettino added: “I am a human. I am not a robot. Of course that is not a nice situation. But in football you need to accept.
“To be in this business, in this type of club, you need to be strong. We have the energy and the capacity to move on. Yes, of course, it’s not a nice moment but it’s always about to move on and convince the players and push the players to never give up, to be brave and recover from this kind of situation.
“The players need to feel the confidence, they need to believe again to compete again. The players want to deliver a very good show. Of course they feel the pressure from the fans in the 90 minutes. It’s easy to be sitting and watching the players play but when the stress arrives, sometimes it is not easy. Right now, we need to help them recover from the defeat.
“I think when we scored, we didn’t start badly, the game. I think in the way we conceded the first goal, I think the team suffered the impact, and to try and build the momentum for us, and trust in the way we are trying to play.
“A difficult moment to manage after that. The energy dropped and it was a really difficult moment to manage. Two own goals (Cunha’s shot took a deflection but was awarded to him) in the first half and yes, we feel the impact. In the second half, we start with the possibility of scoring our second goal but when you concede, you feel on the touchline that it was very difficult for the players to manage the situation.”
Ben Chilwell made an admission that Chelsea fans weren’t happy with.
“I think they probably showed that they wanted it more,” Chilwell said. “Of course we do want it, but they probably showed it a little bit more on the pitch: 50-50s, running more.
“There’s no excuses, as soon as they scored the first goal they pretty much kind of dominated the rest of the game. So yeah, we have to look at ourselves.”
