Chelsea's head coach says victory comes with the 'pain'

Mauricio Pochettino gave Chelsea's recipe for victory when they met Tottenham in the Premier League. He said this after a clinical performance against the following positive results achieved by his team in this match. The Blues picked up three important points after beating their opponents in the postponed match in Week 26 of the 2023/24 Premier League while playing at Stamford Bridge on Thursday(02nd May 2024) with a scoreline of 2-0 against Spurs.

Trevor Chalobah managed to take advantage of a free kick from Conor Gallagher with a deadly header in the 24th minute. Nicolas Jackson was able to head the ball in the 74th minute after a free kick from Cole Palmer, hit the crossbar and bounced down. With the victory in the London Derby, Chelsea's chances are still alive in the race for a place in European qualification. They are now only three points behind Manchester United in sixth place and only two points behind Newcastle who are seventh.

After the match, Pochettino spoke highly of his players who in this match were able to take advantage of opportunities from set pieces. Then, he praised all departments handling the situation. "We are in a good place, we have extraordinary professionals in dealing with set pieces," said Pochettino. "The team showed the way we want to build this way of playing.

"If you analyze all the teams, all the teams we have conceded goals against and all the teams we have scored goals from set pieces." Tottenham have struggled defensively against set-pieces for much of the season, but coach Ange Postecoglou insists that is not the only root of his team's problems. Postecoglou even dismissed talk of hiring a specialist set-piece coach even though teams such as Arsenal and Liverpool have enjoyed success from such an approach.

"It's about confidence and situations because if you like statistics you can see teams that score a lot of goals in one season through set-pieces and the next season they don't score goals and they have the same people working, staff the same coach. "Listen, that's a debate I agree with Ange. There is so much confusion and it affects the people who make decisions at the club," continued Pochettino. Then, when asked whether it was unrealistic for Chelsea to challenge for the title next season, Pochettino answered diplomatically regarding this opportunity. "I can't say. I can't say there isn't," said Pochettino.

"What I see is that after the situation, after the decisions and after the things that happened, if we want to match Chelsea's history, there is a lot of work to do. "We'll see if we have time to build this way."