Mauricio Pochettino delivers Chelsea injury blow and responds to what fans did at Man Utd

Chelsea manager Mauricio Pochettino admits summer signing Christopher Nkunku is still not ready to make his debut despite increasingly positive news about his fitness. Nkunku joined Chelsea last summer from RB Leipzig and looked sharp in pre-season, but an injury against Dortmund in the U.S. has since left him on the treatment table.

LondonWorld reported last week that the French forward was back in team training but Pochettino says it's still a case of managing him carefully. The Chelsea boss told reporters ahead of the visit to Goodison this weekend: "Still assessing day by day, see tomorrow. I don't believe that he will be involved but we need to assess day by day. We see also Malo Gusto but apart from that no."

The Blues were booed off the pitch at Old Trafford and will need a positive result against Sean Dyche's side to ease the pressure on Pochettino who has won only five of his first 15 Premier League matches. Asked what he thought of his players being booed off the field the Chelsea manager said it was important not to let it get to the players.

He added: "I think it is not fair to talk too much about progress because all of the circumstances are difficult and we need to evaluate day by day and game by game. It's not an excuse because we are in a club that needs to win. We know the club better, we know the players better, the relationship with the staff and people here is a massive progress because we know them. "Every single player knows what we expect from that, another thing is to deliver the job, another thing is to perform. We are not getting what we want, I think we deserve much more from the beginning of the season, the last few weeks we dropped our performance, I am fair and realistic. We need to get a good way to perform better again. After Brighton, the feelings were different, after Manchester we cannot go from 0 to 100, 100 to 0. This type of period is normal, it is tough because we are Chelsea.

"We need to see the reality that sometimes we struggle and we can't use all of the elements. Not only us. Too many positive things from the beginning of the season, it's about trying to keep going, being calm, not too much when we win, and not too down when we lose. The balance is the most important."

Chelsea could win consecutive Premier League matches at Everton for the first time in 15 years.