Mauricio Pochettino suffered his heaviest defeat as Chelsea manager yesterday after watching his side lose 5-0 against Arsenal.
It has not been a good last few days for Mauricio Pochettino and Chelsea, who were also knocked out of the FA Cup by Manchester City last Saturday.
However, that game, which ended 1-0, was nothing compared to what happened at the Emirates last night.
Pochettino made multiple changes to his side, including at the back, with Thiago Silva and Trevoh Chalobah two players to have dropped out.
Chelsea fans will have to get used to not having Silva in their team, as the central defender is expected to leave the club at the end of the season. According to Fabrizio Romano, he actually rejected a move away from west London in January.
Mauricio Pochettino explains why Trevoh Chalobah did not start for Chelsea against Arsenal
Silva and Chalobah did a good job against City in the FA Cup semi-finals, not being breached until the 84th minute.
Pochettino, though, left both players on the bench for the Arsenal game, starting Axel Disasi and Benoit Badiashile instead.
Chalobah has not played too much football this season because of injury, and Pochettino has now explained that both the 24-year-old and Silva needed a rest.
Speaking to football.london and other outlets after the match, the Argentine said: “I need to explain that Chalobah didn’t play at the start of the season and Silva, a 39-year-old, needs a rest, also. We needed to provide the team with energy. Reece and Malo were not available. We used Mudryk for Palmer and I think the circumstances to make a decision and make some changes.
“But I think the most difficult thing is to accept the way we were starting the game. In the last 30 minutes of the first-half, we competed well and the game was even. In the second-half, the way we started, I think in this moment started to suffer a lot and struggled too much in the game.”
Will Trevoh Chalobah return to the Chelsea team on Saturday?
Chelsea’s next game is against Aston Villa on Saturday.
After last night’s horror show at the back, you would expect both Chalobah and Silva to return to the starting XI.
Badiashile and Disasi have obviously given Pochettino no reason to keep them in the team.
Because of profit and sustainability rules, Chelsea may have to offload players in the summer and will be hoping to get some new names on their list of most expensive sales of all time if so.
Based on how Badiashile and Disasi performed yesterday, though, Chalobah is not someone they should be looking to get rid of.