Mauricio Pochettino insisted Chelsea have to ‘blame ourselves’ as he rued his side’s missed chances in their 2-1 loss to Wolves on Sunday.
Mario Lemina and Matt Doherty scored for the hosts in the Christmas Eve match, before Christopher Nkunku pulled a goal back for Chelsea on his Premier League debut at Molineux.
Chelsea were made to pay for missing several opportunities to score and Pochettino says his side ‘deserve much more’ but can only blame themselves for the loss.
‘We made mistakes. We need to blame ourselves. That is why we didn’t win. We had the chances to score,’ said Pochettino. ‘We are our own enemy. Today, we lost the game.
‘We feel very disappointed because I think we deserve much more. This competition wounds you when you are not clinical enough. We created chances. That is why it is so disappointing. We conceded after a few corners and it was really difficult.’
Chelsea have missed the most big chances in the Premier League this season, according to Opta.
The Blues have created 57 big chances this term but have failed to convert 36 of them.
Pochettino highlighted the youth of his current squad as a factor in Chelsea’s failure to be clinical in the final third.
‘We were talking a lot at the beginning of the season. We are young in age. It is a young team,’ Pochettino said.
‘We have players playing for the first time in the league. They need to adapt. It is confidence and about quality.
‘We need to score if we want to win the games. We are very disappointed. Sometimes we have to keep a clean sheet if we cannot score. We conceded too many corners. We need to keep going and pushing. Young teams learn from this sort of game.’
The most notable miss from the defeat by Wolves came from Raheem Sterling, whose effort was saved by Jose Sa in the first half after opting to shoot despite having the opportunity to square it to the unmarked Cole Palmer and Nicolas Jackson.