Chelsea fans turned on their players especially Nicholas Jackson who wasted several chances in their 2-1 loss to Wolves Sunday.
But coach Mauricio Pochettino has urged the supporters not to blame Jackson and the others.
Mario Lemina and Matt Doherty punished Chelsea’s defensive mistakes and poor finishing to win, with Christopher Nkunku scoring a consolation goal on his Premier League debut.
Asked about the fans’ reaction to his decision to take Jackson off in the 80th minute, Pochettino said: “I heard nothing from the fans but we wanted Nkunku and [Raheem] Sterling [in the central striker positions].
“It is always about expectation, how you manage expectation and set the expectation. If we compare Jackson to different strikers that arrive at his age to a new league, he is scoring goals when you look at his performances.
“It is not about blaming him. I think you can accept the frustration from the fans. It is about when we don’t score, [for] the offensive players, but I think we need to blame all together.
“My advice is to blame them all together because football is a team sport, a collective sport, we cannot blame only one [player].
“But in this case, he is young, in the Premier League, the expectation is massive and we are Chelsea. At Chelsea, there is pressure to play and deliver the best job possible.”
Pochettino was then asked about Chelsea’s poor finishing more generally, with Armando Broja and Raheem Sterling also wasting key chances, and the statistics showing that no club in the Premier League has missed more big chances than his team.
“It’s difficult because we always talk about creating chances, to provide the team with a good shape and strategy to put players in positions to score,” he continued.
“That’s why at the moment, you are frustrated. This is a young team which becomes more frustrated and feels the pressure more. They play for Chelsea, that is all about winning and it is not an easy thing to manage. That’s why it is about time, keeping them believing and helping the players to improve and be more clinical in front of goal.
“All we can do is practice more and more and more and it is going to arrive with time. They are quality players, that’s why they are here, and it is going to arrive with time. They just need to be more calm and relaxed in the box. Of course, I agree with you that today we were our own worst enemy when losing this game.
“Of course, I give credit to Wolves because they scored and did their jobs. But I think we were the better side in the first half but [because of] our lack of capacity to score, we didn’t win the game.”
