Mauricio Pochettino tells fans the ‘difficulty’ of managing Chelsea and reveals boost ahead of Aston Villa

Chelsea manager Mauricio Pochettino says not having to play in the Champions League is a blessing in disguise given the number of injuries they have and the amount of time they need to get the team in shape and back to where they belong.

Pochettio has endured a difficult start to the season but that is also partly down to the fact that almost 11 members of his first team are out injured including record signing Moises Caicedo and captain Reece James.

He admits the freedom to train players will help speed up the progress. He told reporters ahead of the game against Aston Villa this weekend: “Yes because I think for us it’s about us recovering players from injury.

“The circumstance is good to have time to work. It was a very good week, we worked really hard with the players we have and then had time to recover players. If you are involved in European competition it is difficult.

“For the fans, of course, it is difficult because normally Chelsea are involved in the competition but at the moment we are not. We need to take advantage of the situation.”

The Blues could only draw at Bournemouth last weekend and will hope they get their seond win of the campaign when they host Aston Villa this weekend at Stamford Bridge.

Pochettino is hoping that three of his players who missed the visit to the Vitality will recover to help them get the victory this weekend.

The Argentine manager said: “Moi we need to assess tomorrow, he was training in an individual way, not with the team until today. We need to assess tomorrow and see for Sunday. Marc suffered a fever and was back when we restarted training. Noni was involved also during the week in training. Maybe we need one day more, maybe Armando Broja can be involved, maybe Sunday. Not sure, we need to assess him tomorrow. We need to recover players and it is important many players start being available to be involved again.”