Mauricio Pochettino warned his players hard work is still required at Chelsea despite the increase to their status and bank balance that comes with joining the club.
A chaotic campaign that has seen the first-team squad decimated by injuries threatens to peter out, with the club marooned in 12th place ahead of the visit of Manchester United to Stamford Bridge on Thursday night.
It comes five days after the league’s second-bottom side Burnley left west London with a 2-2 draw despite playing the whole of the second half with 10 men, as relations between the club and its supporters seemed to sink further into discord.
The club has an FA Cup semi-final against Manchester City at Wembley to come later in the month, likely to be their only chance of salvaging a dismal season.
Chelsea are on course for their second bottom-half league finish in a row and Pochettino called on his players to use the final weeks of the campaign to follow his own hard-working example and show supporters why they were signed as part of a £1billion overhaul of the squad.
“When I was in Espanyol, my first job as a coach, I was on the training ground at seven o’clock every morning,” said the Argentinian.
“Then I moved to Southampton, six-thirty. Then Tottenham, seven. Then Paris (St Germain), six in the morning. Now six forty-five. You can ask the guy on security.
“It’s not going to change after 15 years. My passion is here. My motivation is football. You increase your bank account but that cannot put me in a comfortable zone to say ‘now I will arrive at nine o’clock and leave at two o’clock’. I need to keep pushing myself.
“If (a player) arrives from another club where there was less money, less expectation but now I arrive here because people believe I am so good, what do I need to do? It’s to arrive early, it’s to work more, it’s to run more, be focused more.
“It’s more responsibility now. We feel that responsibility.”
The Chelsea Supporters’ Trust wrote to the owners and senior management last month to communicate their dismay at the direction the club is taking under the leadership of Todd Boehly’s Clearlake Capital consortium.
The letter warned of potentially irreparable damage that is being done to the relationship between the club and its supporters, as the team has gone from being Champions League regulars to a mid-table side in less than two years.
Pochettino rejected the suggestion players have already adopted the view that the season is doomed and there is little left to salvage.
“If you are in a comfort zone, you drop in your level, you drop in your standard,” he said. “I don’t say that that has happened here. Too many other things have happened.”
Keane doubts Man Utd will crack top four under Amorim this season
Roy Keane does not believe Manchester United will get back into the Premier League's top four under Ruben Amorim this season due to a "real lack of quality".
The Red Devils legend was speaking after United started life under the Portuguese with a 1-1 draw at Ipswich Town, as Omari Hutchinson cancelled out Marcus Rashford's second-minute opener.
Keane acknowledged Amorim has to be given time to turn things around at Old Trafford, but does not see United cracking the top four this season.
"You have to give the man a chance," Keane told Sky Sports. "But the threat going forward, it's a huge problem for Man Utd. It's not good enough.
"Do I believe they have the quality to get them back to top four? Absolutely not. The evidence is not there. It's the same old stuff. Predictable and a real lack of quality."
United created 0.9 xG compared to Ipswich's 1.75 and had fewer shots on target (four) compared to Ipswich (six) at Portman Road.
They did have more touches in the opposition box (16 to 11) but had fewer final-third entries (48 to 61) and big chances created (two to three).
Ipswich were extremely resilient opponents after their early setback, and Tractor Boys boss Kieran McKenna praised his side, particularly Hutchinson after he grabbed his first Premier League goal.
"I thought he (Hutchinson) was a big threat first half, naturally more a winger, but most teams are going to press us high and in the spaces in the middle of the pitch having a dribbler in the middle of the pitch who's elusive and hard to pick up can be a big threat," he told Sky Sports.
"I think it's his first goal in the Premier League he'll be happy to have that of his back and he's improving."
"The first half, it's a blow to concede the early goal but I thought as the half went on we grew in the ascendancy, and the intensity of pressing and work on the ball.
"I thought we were the dominant team in the first half and deserved to be going in at least level. Second half in fairness, Man Utd had more control. It was difficult, we had to defend with real discipline on shape."
Leganes 0-3 Real Madrid: Mbappe and Bellingham score as Blancos close on Barcelona
Kylian Mbappe and Jude Bellingham were both on target as Real Madrid moved to within four points of LaLiga leaders Barcelona with a 3-0 win at Leganes.
Federico Valverde also scored for Carlo Ancelotti's side, who still have a game in hand on leaders Barca, who were pegged back in a 2-2 draw with Celta Vigo on Saturday.
Mbappe ended a goal drought of over 400 minutes after being teed up by Vinicius Junior shortly before half-time, moments after Leganes had surrendered possession near the edge of their own area.
Madrid dominated possession throughout the second half and doubled their advantage in the 66th minute, Valverde drilling a low effort home from a free-kick won by Bellingham.
Bellingham later got in on the act with a header on the rebound after substitute Brahim Diaz rattled the crossbar, as Madrid cruised to back-to-back league wins.
Data Debrief: Dirty work pays off for Madrid
Mbappe's opener, scored at a vital time shortly before the interval, set Madrid on their way to victory on Sunday.
Eduardo Camavinga and Bellingham both pressed high to help the visitors recover possession in the build-up, and Madrid have now scored five goals resulting from high turnovers in LaLiga this season – the most of any team across Europe's top five leagues.
This was the first time Ancelotti had faced Leganes in LaLiga, and he has now beaten all 28 different opponents he has come up against in the competition.
Napoli 1-0 Roma: Lukaku downs former club on Ranieri's return
Claudio Ranieri's Roma return was spoilt by Romelu Lukaku, whose goal against his old club sealed a 1-0 win for Napoli.
Ranieri was appointed Roma boss over the international break, with the 73-year-old coming out of retirement to take charge of the club for a third time.
Yet it was ex-Roma striker Lukaku who decided Sunday's contest at Stadio Diego Armando Maradona, with his 54th-minute effort sending Antonio Conte's team back to the top of Serie A.
Lukaku was well-placed to convert from Giovanni Di Lorenzo's cutback, bringing up his fifth Serie A goal of the campaign.
Roma, who had just two attempts and managed only 0.07 expected goals (xG) in the first half, woke up after Lukaku's goal, with Artem Dovbyk powering a header off the woodwork from a free-kick minutes later, but the visitors' comeback attempts proved fruitless.
Ranieri's next task is to rally his troops for a Europa League clash with Tottenham on Thursday.
Data Debrief: Ranieri's underwhelming return
There was no sign of an immediate upturn for 12th-place Roma, if they were hoping for a new-coach bounce.
Roma ended the first half with fewer than 70 successful passes (68). It is the first time they have had so few successful passes in the opening half of a league game since 2004-05.
With only three wins to their name in the league, they have won fewer than four matches in their opening 13 Serie A games for the first time since the 1978-79 campaign (also three).
And of course, it had to be Lukaku, who was leading their line last season, that delivered the hammer blow. The Belgium international has been involved in nine goals in Serie A this term (five goals, four assists). Only his former Everton club-mate Ademola Lookman, now a star at Atalanta, has contributed to more goals in the competition (seven goals, four assists).
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