Chelsea are unbeaten since Mauricio Pochettino changed the tactics of the team by playing Marc Cucurella as an inverted left-back in the second-half against Aston Villa.

Since the change in tactics, Chelsea came from 2-0 down to draw 2-2 against Aston Villa and have since beaten Tottenham Hotspur 2-0 and West Ham 5-0.

Asked why it took time to use Cucurella as inverted LB and change tactics, Pochettino said: “To evolve tactically, you first of all need to fix problems.

“You can’t evolve tactically if you are not competitive, if you don’t have the legs to move or be aggressive.

“You always need to build the house step by step. I think now we are in a moment where the team have realised that to compete is different from to play football. They had to understand how we need to compete in the Premier League.

“Obviously, for a young team, you need to set and apply the principles. After that, we have the capacity and the experience to evolve in different ways in the game.

“Because we have already learned a lot about how to compete and you can see now a different situation.”