Mauricio Pochettino admits there’s a sense of ‘disappointment’ at the club (Photo by James Gill – Danehouse/Getty Images)
Mauricio Pochettino says the ‘flat’ atmosphere among Chelsea supporters is the effect of the past 18 months at the club.
The Blues take on Middlesbrough in the EFL Cup semi-final second leg on Tuesday night, hoping to book a place in the Wembley final.
A section of supporters vented their anger at the side after the 1-0 defeat in the first leg a fortnight ago.
It’s far from the first time that fans have turned on the team this season, with Pochettino making a mixed start to life at Stamford Bridge.
Though results have improved in the last six weeks, there remains a sense of unease among supporters.
But Pochettino says the club are ‘paying’ for stints under Graham Potter and Frank Lampard, which embedded a sense of ‘disappointment’.
Chelsea are 1-0 down from the first leg(Credits: Dave Shopland/Shutterstock)
‘We are paying now for the effect of 18 months,’ said Pochettino.
‘We have been here for six months and sometimes for us it is difficult to appreciate or to compare. We arrived this season and it is only six months. It is true that we are getting better results now but, of course, the disappointment for the fans is coming from behind and last season.
‘Now people can give their opinion about this. Maybe it is a little bit more flat and not good because maybe it is disappointment from a long period but, in how we feel, Stamford Bridge is very good. OK, in a few periods in some games, like Brentford or Nottingham Forest, the energy was really down because the team didn’t engage [with] the fans. That is our mistake. But in the rest of the games — Arsenal, [Manchester] City, Brighton, Liverpool — I think the fans were really good.’
Thiago Silva apologised to supporters at the Riverside following the 1-0 defeat in the north-east.
Pochettino says the players share the fans’ pain when results are not good.
‘I think we all need to learn,’ Pochettino said.
‘Maybe it was our mistake so we need to apologise to our fans because sometimes I think that at the moment I can understand the players and also the fans.
‘The players were so disappointed, so upset, that you don’t want to think too much and you want to go inside into the dressing room and go home because you are really angry. But of course if we made a mistake we are going to try. People outside will tell our players that in this type of situation we need to recognise the effort of our fans and to say thank you independent of the result
‘It’s true that if we need to apologise, I am the first to do that if they didn’t feel cared for by our players, but I don’t think this was the intention.’
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