Stephen Warnock and Sue Smith discuss Chelsea's loss to West Ham | The Football Show

Mauricio Pochettino is still waiting for his first win as Chelsea manager after losing their London derby 3-1 to West Ham. I believe this is because that is a new team, new players and the players are not feeling what happened the last few years here. No, I think he's about to believe, to perform. A player like Nico Jackson, that arrived this season, for sure he is going to score because of a missing quality. We are really excited about the squad that we are building and for sure, that is only a defeat that for sure is going to make us more stronger. Steven, you watched the game. Was that a fair reflection of what you saw on the pitch, the scoreline? No, I actually thought Chelsea played well. I liked what I saw from Chelsea, I think it's that cutting edge up front again. I think they dominated as we saw with the statistics in the first half and had all the possession, all the opportunities. But then, credit to David Moyes who changed his tactics a little bit at half-time and made them more difficult to play against, made them understood that they were getting dominated. Played a counter-attacking style of football that suited his team and suited his players and Chelsea found it difficult to break down but I think we just go back to that similar situation last year. Don't get me wrong, I think Chelsea have vastly improved since last year, both confidence-wise and style of play but it's that cutting edge up front. They don't have that clinical striker to finish opportunities again because they had opportunities and I also think the game hinged on some big decisions. Yeah, they did manage to get a goal but from what Stephen is saying, they spent close on a billion pounds and still haven't got a person who can score regularly. Yeah, well I think when you look at the stats, they dominated the game, didn't they? Of course, with the amount of players that have come in, players that have gone out, it's going to take time to gel and you can see, you know, sorting out those, I suppose that the fluidity going forward, that's always going to take time but yeah, they created opportunities and it is about scoring. I like the look of Jackson, I think he looks good, the way that it is movement, the way that he'll get in beyond. But what is your clinical notion? And that's the thing and will it take time? They're unlucky with obviously Nkunku getting injured, I don't know how long he's going to be out for but that is maybe where they need to look. If we jump in our time machine and go back in time, actually when Drogba first arrived, there was question marks over him. I think it took it coming off his knee against Arsenal, the Matthew Harding end for him to score a crucial goal and then the impetus came. It's the same idea with Nicholas Jackson, if he gets that first one, perhaps he can go on a roll or is there something significantly missing? No, I don't think there is. I think when you watch him in pre-season, I think the ability is there. I think he's getting in good positions but I think again, when you think of the cross, I think it was Chilwell put the ball in the first half and he gets a header. I think it was such a good opportunity when you look at it again, the timing of the jumps ever so slightly wrong but they're the moments that you pay the big money for, for strikers to be in those positions when you do get that one opportunity away from home to change a game, more often than not you've got to take that. I do like the look of him but I don't think he can play up there all season on his own as well because Nkunku is obviously injured. I think they will look to bring another striker in. The way, especially in pre-season, what was significant was he was laying the ball off, he was bringing other players in and combining well with the partnerships up front. Raheem Sterling, arguably his best game in a Chelsea shirt. I thought he was brilliant. He looked lively from the first minute, wanting to beat players. We know he's got that, you know, that change of pace to be able to dart into positions but he just looked, he looked re-energised, didn't he? I thought he linked up well with Jackson. There was a couple of times where maybe his pass could have been better, that through ball to him but again, they're just things that, they just take time. You've obviously played together for a period of time. The longer you play together, the more you know what movements they're going to make, you know what sort of pass they want and like similar, like when the cross comes in, you know what sort of movement they're going to make. So that just is, yeah, it's just getting used to playing together. I think the big thing with Sterlingers is that we said last week was that his best game in a Chelsea shirt, then we said this week is that his best game in a Chelsea shirt. I think what you find with him is that when they were playing under Graeme Potter, it was very slow and lethargic and people were always in positions against them. So Raheem Sterling could never find gaps on a pitch. He could never get an overload on the flank. Now Mauricio Pochettino's put in a system that is suiting him down to the ground. It's finding him pockets of space, but it's also allowing players to run beyond him, which is now causing defenders a problem, which suits Raheem Sterling because one of Raheem Sterling's biggest qualities is driving with the ball, is running with the ball. If you've got runners off you and you're counterattacking, it's very, very difficult to defend against. And I think one thing that's been labelled at Raheem Sterling and probably unfairly is his end product. If you think of his record of what he's done in the game, the goals returned, the assists that he gets season upon season, it's not a fluke. He's a very talented player. I think it's just that he gets in that many situations is that every now and again he's going to be wasteful. He's going to be wasteful when you're that type of player because you are trying that eye of a needle pass or that final ball. It's not always going to come off, but I think he's looked fantastic so far. Moses Caicedo, I think it's fair to say perhaps in his cameo role, he didn't look fantastic, but he hasn't played for two months. What will he be thinking this morning and how important is the role of his teammates and of Pochettino at this moment in time? Just put an arm around and say, OK, come on. Well, that's what I was going to raise. I was going to say the fact that it's a huge price tag. Expectation straight away goes right up, doesn't it? You expect him to come on and just be absolutely outstanding. We know that he's a brilliant player. You don't pay that much money for a player that's not of a really high standard. He'll have belief in himself and his ability. It was just one of those games. I'm sure his teammates will certainly put their arm around him. Pochettino, we know, will help him, will guide him. He likes to progress and develop young players, so he'll be doing that. But of course, like I say, he's a top quality player. It was just one of them games. Sometimes that happens on your debut. It's not a player who's coming into the team from a different league who is a bit of an unknown. All these players from Chelsea, or most of them apart from a couple of the new signings, will have played against him. They know his strengths. They know his quality. They won't be sat in a changing room now thinking, what have we spent this money on? They'll just be thinking, one of those things, get on with it, you'll be fine. How important is the role of teammates and Pochettino on a Monday morning like this, when actually what you were saying is Chelsea played well, but once again, got beaten here. What you don't want is that optimism and that confidence that was there perhaps in the Liverpool game and at the start of this one to evaporate and to have last season again. Yeah, but the difference is, if you lose a game knowing that you've played well and that you've created opportunities and the game's changed on a missed penalty, on a couple of decisions within the game, I think you go out of that and go, we're on the right track here. We're heading in the right direction. If you're stagnant and you're not creating opportunities and there's not a feel of, we know what's being asked of us. I think every Chelsea player, when they're on the pitch, I watch them now and I go, I can see what they're trying to achieve. I can see what the ideas are behind training. Straight away, I get the shape. I understand exactly what they're trying to do. Whereas last year, I didn't see it. And that was both under Graeme Potter and Frank Lampard. I was a bit like, this looks a bit lost at times. Whereas now you look at it and you think, so as a player in that changing room, I'd be thinking, this is fine. This isn't a problem. From the manager's point of view, he's just got to keep on reiterating it and saying again, showing them videos, look what we did so well. It might be this final pass. It might be this final movement. He's still new into his reign. It's very, very sort of early in his tenure as Chelsea manager. Yeah, the players will know it's a work in progress, won't they? And like you said, they'll be watching videos and they'll be saying, look at this against Liverpool. This is how well you played. This is the good bits. Keep doing that. And then it's those little minor details, those tweaking of things, because yeah, it's always disappointing to come off and go, God, we played well there, but we didn't get the result that we wanted. But the fact that you played well, it is just making sure those little details are finely tuned. I was looking at some stats from last season and Chelsea, by far of all Premier League teams, had more injuries last season than anyone else in the Premier League. Yeah. The goal scorer yesterday, Chakra Mecca, goes off injured. Add to that Rhys James and Kunku picking up a long-term injury in pre-season. All slightly different injuries, but if you're a player in that squad, you're beginning to think actually what's happening here, because it seems that Chelsea, more than any other team, are suffering from injuries. Why is that? Well, I don't know, because we don't see the training sessions. We don't see what the pre-hab is. I mean, before training, you usually do a pre-hab session, which is like a warm-up for strengthening muscles and things like that. Then you'll do weight sessions after training at certain times. Are the timings of them wrong? We don't know, because we're not privy to that. We're not in within the training sessions. I think on a whole, we're seeing more injuries in football on a whole anyway, because there's more games. Also, the pitches are getting tougher. They're not as forgiven as they used to be. They're harder. So playing on them surfaces is very telling as well. The speed of the game has probably intensified over the last five to ten years. It's probably a lot quicker than it was when I played in it as well. The sports science behind everything is to improve these guys and to push them to the absolute maximum. When you're running to your absolute maximum, you're almost on the brink of breaking down at times, and it's a very fine line to get right. I think you're asking, if I'm being completely honest, Rob, I think you're asking the wrong person. I think you'd be better sitting down with a sports scientist than asking a sports scientist how close that tipping point is to pushing a player to the point of being too far over the edge and the fine line of keeping them to their absolute maximum. I think that's a very tough thing to have to do for some medical staff, because don't forget, these medical staff are on the, well, the medical sports science staff. They're all being pushed by not only the manager and the coaching staff, they're being pushed by the fans. They're being pushed by the leagues to get out the best players in world football week in, week out and have them perform at the absolute maximum as well. That's very tough. One of those, you would think, would be Rhys James. Yet another injury. He's handed the captain's own band and is now out injured. For him emotionally, mentally, how tough is that? I mean, you've had injuries, Sue. Do you start questioning your own body and how frustrating must that be? Yeah, it must be really frustrating, really sort of disappointing from his perspective, because you just feel it's obviously the high of getting the captaincy, the honour of being the captain of Chelsea. We know how key he is to Chelsea. Whoever's the manager, whatever system they play, he's absolutely key to Chelsea from a defensive perspective, also from an attacking perspective. So he'll be disappointed and he'll just be hoping that, you know, it's something short term. It's something that he's just going through a period of picking up these sort of niggly injuries and he'll overcome that because, like I mentioned, he's so key to Chelsea and to England.