Chelsea star slams squad after Newcastle defeat and highlights six key areas for teammates

Marc Cucurella was extremely honest in his assessment of Chelsea’s 4-1 defeat to Newcastle United.

Chelsea were punished for their poor second half performance at St. James’ Park as they capitulated in the final 45 minutes. After going in level at the interval, Mauricio Pochettino‘s side collapsed and made error after error, while captain Reece James was shown a second yellow card to reduce the visitors down to 10.

They were off it in every department which left Pochettino, who was sat in the stands after receiving a one-match touchline suspension, angry and disappointed at full-time.

“Really frustrated and really disappointed, also with the performance,” admitted Pochettino.

“We were never connected with the game. Even when we scored, it was a moment to go but the team was never with the right energy to go and compete.”

He added: “Both disappointed and angry. It’s normal to blame yourself when this type of performance happens and we need to blame ourselves.”

It was felt by the squad at full-time. James and veteran Thiago Silva, whose mistake at the back proved costly to hand Newcastle their third just moments after they re-took the lead, both apologised to supporters on Saturday evening.

Cucurella, who has shown improvement in his second season at Stamford Bridge, was in damning mood when he reflected on the defeat on Tyneside. He pointed out everything wrong with Chelsea’s performance and told the group to ‘stay together’ as they prepare to face Brighton & Hove Albion on Sunday afternoon at Stamford Bridge.

• We didn’t show our character
• We made too many mistakes
• We didn’t show our personality
• We need to be more consistent
• We need to delete this game
• We need to stay together

Cucurella told the official Chelsea website after last weekend’s defeat: “We came here in a good way but we didn’t show our character. We played very bad. We didn’t have a good performance. We made too many mistakes which you can’t do at this level. It’s not like we are conceding incredible goals, they are little mistakes. We need to improve on these things in training.

“Every duel we lost gave them more confidence, but this is not an excuse. We didn’t show our personality. We need to change this. It’s very difficult in this league if you don’t show your character.”

He added: “We have a lot of talent but we need to show that every week. It’s not enough to show it one week and then not the next. We need to be more consistent.

“We need to delete this game and see the mistakes, and then we need to show our character next week.

“When you have a good result you are not the best team, and when you lose you are not the worst, so we need to stay together in these bad moments and train hard because we have a very important game next week (vs Brighton).”