Former Tottenham star believes Mauricio Pochettino’s brutal training regime could be behind Chelsea’s poor start to the season as he claims ‘some of our players struggled’

• Chelsea boss Mauricio Pochettino has had a tough start to life at the club
• An ex-Spurs player feels his gurelling training methods could be a reason 
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Chelsea poor start to the season could be down to Mauricio Pochettino’s gruelling training methods, claims a former Tottenham player who featured under him.

The Blues are 14th in the Premier League table after losing three, drawing two and winning just one of their games so far – despite spending around £400million on players like Moises Caicedo, Romeo Lavia, Cole Palmer and Nicolas Jackson.

That came after owner Todd Boehly had already sanctioned a spend of around £600m the season prior – with 13 players arriving and many of Chelsea’s reliable old guard leaving through the exit door. 

Chelsea have since struggled to adapt with the huge changes to personnel and Pochettino has been unable to galvanise a squad that was already in freefall having worked under Thomas Tuchel, Graham Potter and Frank Lampard last season.

In addition to sweeping changes on the transfer front, Chelsea are still coming to terms with Pochettino’s methods, which are notoriously demanding and require high fitness levels to execute.

Mauricio Pochettino’s tough training methods could be behind Chelsea’s poor start, according to a former Spurs player

The Blues are 14th in the table after losing three of their first six games in a rocky start 

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Aaron Lennon, who played under the Argentine in the 2014-15 season feels his gruelling regime might be behind Chelsea start – revealing that a number of his old team-mates struggled during Pochettino’s first year in north London. 

‘If you do look at the injury list, I actually looked at it and thought [about] Pochettino’s training methods,’ he told Stadium Astro, via the Evening Standard.

‘He does change the training routine. He did it when he came to Spurs. Some of our players, we did struggle at the beginning because it was a completely different load and maybe that is playing a part.

Lennon played a total of 17 games under Pochettino during the 2014-15 campaign before being loaned – and eventually sold – to Everton after one year. He featured 364 times in total for Spurs, scoring 30 goals.

Aaron Lennon, who played under the Argentine in 2014-15, claimed ‘some of our players struggled’ with his gruelling regime

Pochettino is renowned for his exhausting double training sessions – as well as putting his players through tough running tests

Now 36 having retired last year – last playing for Burnley – the former England winger predicted a difficult campaign for Chelsea, who he feels have too much inexperience and too many changes to contend with. 

‘I really think Chelsea are in for a tough season,’ he added.

‘We’ve talked about changing so many players and so many managers, and a lot of these players are really young, they’ve not played in the league and they’ve come for big, big price tags. The pressure of what Chelsea fans expect, they’re not going to accept this.

‘They’re on five points in six games, no goals in three games. For Chelsea? It’s unheard of. They’re under massive pressure and I really think Pochettino has got a difficult, difficult task at hand.

‘It’s a bit like Man United at the minute, it’s just story after story, and that’s when, normally, things are not going well and players are unhappy.’ 

Pochettino will hope to see his side turn a corner when Chelsea host Brighton at home in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday night, before travelling to Craven Cottage to face Fulham next Monday. 

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