‘Only the beginning’ - Mauricio Pochettino calls for patience, insists Chelsea must ‘believe in the process’

Mauricio Pochettino tasted defeat for the first time as Chelsea manager after his side were beaten 3-1 at West Ham United on Sunday.

Nayef Aguerd scored early on before Carney Chukwuemeka levelled matters before half-time, but Michail Antonio finished well - helped by debutant James Ward-Prowse’s second assist - to put The Hammers back in control.

With the chance to draw level again, Enzo Fernandez missed a penalty and with the job all but done for 10-man West Ham, new Blues signing Moises Caicedo fouled Emerson in the box, and Lucas Paqueta made no mistake with his spot kick to seal the win deep into added time.

Despite dropping points in their first two games - following a 1-1 draw against Liverpool last weekend - Pochettino says Chelsea “need to believe in the process” during the early days of his tenure.

“It was not just the frustration but also the disappointment when we missed the penalty,” he told Sky Sports after the game. “We were playing well and we didn’t get the reward.

“At the start of the second half, we had a little bit of disbelief until we started to play again and with Chukwuemeka’s injury, we had to change the shape of the team.

“It was difficult but towards the end we started to dominate the game and we conceded in one action. We need to be stronger in this type of situation because we know West Ham are a team that try to play deeper and counterattack and can be really dangerous.

“We are disappointed, but this is only the beginning. We need to believe in the process. When we finish the market and have time to work, a lot of the players only arrived in the last few weeks, I think that we are going to be strong and for sure, we are going to be really competitive.”

Although the result did not go Chelsea’s way, Pochettino took plenty of positives from the game in East London and knows where his side need to improve.

“That is football,” he said. “Teams like ours, we need to get the right balance and today there were a few actions we didn’t manage well and we conceded.

“But we created many chances and we did well in the first half. I think we should win, easily, the game in the first half but in the second half in another isolated action, we conceded again. It was difficult, it was difficult to find the space to create chances.

“Overall, this type of game is difficult to explain because we had the possession, we created, and maybe we were the better side but we lost.”

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