Mauricio Pochettino has warned his Tottenham squad that beating Chelsea is the only way to make him happy again.
Spurs fell to a damaging 2-1 loss at Burnley on Saturday as they look to keep faint hopes of winning the title alive and holding off the challenges of their top-four rivals.
Chelsea are one of those rivals for Champions League qualification and victory for Spurs at Stamford Bridge will open up a 13-point gap between the London teams.
“To be positive I need to see the reaction of my players [on Wednesday],” he told reporters. “I am only capable of being happy if we beat Chelsea because I still feel pain from the defeat against Burnley, it’s impossible to put out that feeling.
“Only you can change the emotion and feeling if you are capable of showing everyone that it was an accident and we are capable of being Chelsea.
“It’s going to be tough of course. It’s going to be difficult because Chelsea are a great team with great players. Of course it’s always tough to play at Stamford Bridge but we need to try in a different way to how we tried at Burnley.
“I think what disappointed the most is that it was so easy for Burnley to beat us. That is painful because we knew it would be a difficult game.
“I not only told you but everyone that I was worried about translating to the players that it was going to be a game that you need to match the aggression and the way that they fight, but we didn’t match them in this aspect and that is why we lost the game and that is painful.”
(Evening Standard)
