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Mauricio Pochettino has stressed the need for Chelsea to develop an English core in their squad.

The Blues currently have a large number of home-grown players in their squad, including Reece James, Ben Chilwell, Levi Colwill, Carney Chukwuemeka, Cole Palmer, Raheem Sterling and Trevor Chalobah, who are all first-team players.

Speaking during Friday’s pre-match press conference, Poch said: “Yes, agree because we are in England. Today, football is global but it is important to keep the culture of the country. It’s important to have English players and important to keep the identity.

“I love players from everywhere, if they are good better but we need to understand we are in England, in a country where we need to respect the culture.”

He added. “But I think we are in a good way and you can feel that we are improving, progressing. It is part of the process, it is part of the project.

“It is normal when you have young players arrive at a club like Chelsea where the demand is so high from the beginning. The demand and the competition doesn’t wait for you and you need to perform.

“You need to put all the circumstances and differences, like coming from a different league, aside. There is pressure because of the history. That is why it’s about the process but I am not concerned about that because we know what we are doing and for sure it is going to arrive, the moment that we are going to perform. Not only to perform but translate performance into results.”