Unfortunately for Mauricio Pochettino and Chelsea things simply do not get any easier. After their fourth defeat of the season already the toughest test is yet to come.
Having only played two of the top eight in the opening 10 matches there is a big run to come for the Blues boss that threatens to define the season. In the matches against direct top four — or five — rivals the Blues have drawn and looked largely impressive, perhaps offering a glimmer of hope for what is to come.
It has been the games against sides playing with deep blocks — West Ham, Nottingham Forest and Brentford — that has troubled the club with only one goal coming in the games against those three sides. Now the pressure will be ramped up once again on Pochettino as Thomas Frank ensured that it was a brief stay in the top half of the league.
Here, football.london takes a look at the next five games to come in the Premier League. Chelsea face Blackburn next up in the Carabao Cup.
«Next one is Wednesday here, Carabao Cup,» Pochettino said when asked how much improvement is needed before travelling to Spurs a week on Monday. «Of course, after we are going to talk about the league.
»We played Liverpool, we played Arsenal and the team did really well. When you see this type of game today, like Nottingham Forest, we dominate and we cannot score goals, the block is so, so deep. Too many bodies inside of the box, we struggled a little bit to score but I think if you see the different games when we play teams like Arsenal or Liverpool, the team did really well.
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