What Mikel Arteta said to Mauricio Pochettino after Arsenal thrashed Chelsea 5-0

‘I’ve been on the other side as well and nothing. He’s doing a great job, if you look at this team and analyse six, seven games of them, they deserve to win every match they play big games, big teams and they deserve to beat all of them.

‘Hopefully things will turn around and be as he deserves.’

Asked if his sympathy for Pochettino has an impact on how much he enjoyed the win over Chelsea, Arteta replied: ‘No, I love winning and he will try to do the same.

‘When you talk about sympathy and someone that I love and admire, for sure I want the best for him.’

Pochettino, meanwhile, refused to blame his players for their inconsistency after delivering a more impressive performance against Manchester City in their FA Cup semi-final defeat just three days ago.

‘It’s true we did not compete. I cannot blame the players, as a team we are showing this inconsistency. That is why we are where we are, because we are capable of having an amazing performance, and three days later to be at the other extreme,’ Pochettino said.

‘When we have bad days, we are so bad. When we are good, we are capable of everything. But it’s another thing that we need to be aware that we need to improve for the future.

‘We cannot blame the players, I’m not going to blame the players. The circumstances are bigger than the performance of the players. We cannot blame young guys who came here and after suffering some circumstances, come here to fight against a team preparing to win the Premier League.

‘We cannot be unfair with our players. It is true we are disappointed with our performance, but I am not going to say something which is unfair to describe our team, our players, our squad.’

Mauricio Pochettino says Chelsea must ‘assess the strategy’ after heaviest-ever defeat to Arsenal

Mauricio Pochettino (Image: Getty)

Mauricio Pochettino says Chelsea need to take “different decisions” to improve upon a disappointing season.

The Argentine was speaking following a desperate 5-0 defeat at the Emirates Stadium, where his team collapsed against title-chasing Arsenal.

Kai Havertz and Ben White both scored twice on Tuesday night after Leandro Trossard had opened the scoring in Chelsea’s heaviest-ever defeat to Arsenal.

The defeat leaves Chelsea 30 points behind Mikel Arteta’s top-of-the-table side. The west Londoner’s hopes of qualifying for Europe have taken another blow, as they remain ninth in the Premier League table.

When asked to explain what went wrong, Pochettino said: “There are too many reasons why this happens. That’s what we need to explain to the club for the future.

“The club is building a new project, a new way to operate and of course always that is a risk you need to take when you build a young squad that sometimes with all the circumstances that we are living are not helping us be competitive or be better or consistent.

“That’s the reason this type of game can happen when you play a team capable to win the Premier League.”

He added: “When we have bad days, we are so bad. Then when we are good we are capable of things. That’s something we need to be aware of for the future.

“In the same way, we go from high to low, we can go from low to high. We are not capable to keep the focus. That’s is what we are managing.

“I am not going to blame the players, you cannot blame the young guys who came here and suffered these circumstances and are fighting to win the Premier League. We cannot be unfair with our players.

“We are unhappy with our players but I am not going to use that word [embarrassing] to describe our squad.

“We need to accept this is one of the worst defeats for Chelsea against Arsenal. We need to accept the risk we took to come here. We need to be positive to help, be clever to help and assess the strategy for the plan and the future.

“It should be better in our analysis and to try to be clinical in our decisions to not be in this situation for the future.”

Pochettino explained why he opted for a back four featuring the inexperienced Alfie Gilchrist, who struggled.

“Chalobah didn’t play from the beginning of the season and Thiago Silva is 39. They needed to rest,” he said.

“After a tough game from Wembley, we needed to provide the team energy. Alfie [Gilchrist] started because Reece James and Malo Gusto were unavailable to play.

“We used Mudryk instead of Palmer. It’s the circumstances that led to the decision to make changes. It happened and we cannot change that. We need to accept it.

“In the last 30 minutes of the first half, we competed well. In the second half, the way we started and then went to 3-0 and couldn’t compete, suffered a lot and struggled to manage the game.”

After piling misery on one London rival, the Gunners will hope to do the same to Tottenham on Sunday afternoon. Arteta is already thinking about the next fixture as he wants to end their Premier League campaign on a perfect note by winning the four remaining matches.