Chelsea boss Mauricio Pochettino has urged Chelsea fans to forget about the trophy-laden past under Roman Abramovich and embrace a new version of the club.
Speaking after Chelsea’s impressive 3-1 FA Cup victory over Aston Villa, Pochettino said: “I think it’s so important, what I told you yesterday, to create a very good energy with our fans, with the club, with the players, because the players need help, they need help from the fans.
“And today the fans were fantastic, with this connection, with this energy, and the players on the pitch showing they care about the club and they want to win and they want to succeed, only good things can happen.
“We need to stop thinking that we are the Chelsea from the last 20 years, because we are not anymore this type of Chelsea that people believe that.
“Now we need to move on. And all together we need to create this project, we need to provide this team – which is the youngest team in the Premier League – with the possibility to perform, to find the balance, to be consistent.
“Not only play well today and then tomorrow only OK, because we are young, we made a mistake, or we believed that we are already there in the level that everyone supposes. That makes me sad because people need to realise that it is not that anymore. Move on. We need to move on. Move on.
“I don’t care if the people are happy or not happy with my speech, it’s only that I care for the club, I care for my players, I want to help the players. We are a coaching staff that care a lot about the players and we want the best for the players and the club.
“And we are going to fight. I don’t care what the people are going to say or what the people are going to make noise to try to tackle [what we are building].
“And I’m not talking because today it’s easy because we won the game and it’s easy to talk. No, I was talking the same way yesterday. I’m not more sad or happy today after the win than compared to after Wolverhampton because we really know because we have the experience that this type of project needs time and trust.
“We cannot build a team capable to challenge teams like the others that are fighting for big things in a few months, because you need to fix too many things. You need observe, analyse, compete.
“See how to compete with this team, with this formation, another formation with this player, another player, different names.
“And people sometimes say, ‘No Chelsea need to do this because they invest’. No, no, no. We are building a project that is maybe going to be one year, two years, three years, but in the moment the start of the project is to work and of course after it’s going to be different.”