Mauricio Pochettino will return to his former club Tottenham Hotspur in charge of a young Chelsea team in the Premier League’s Monday evening fixture, but doesn’t accept that our relatively inexperienced squad will put us at any disadvantage in north London.

In an exclusive interview, our head coach looked ahead to the Blues’ next match, which for many of his players will be a first experience of the fierce rivalry between the two clubs, or indeed a game and atmosphere of this magnitude.

However, Pochettino was not concerned about individual experience in that regard, stating that it is more the group experience of playing together and knowing each other that he is eager to build with this group as soon as possible.

‘I think the most important thing is to identify it in the right way,’ he explained. ‘Because you have more experience it doesn’t mean that you are going to perform better as an individual, maybe you can make more mistakes than the younger players. The most important thing here is that we are still a young team, because we need to know each other.

‘It’s not about age, is not about experience, whether you’ve played one game or 100 games. It’s about being competitive and being clinical in both areas, and to try to dominate the games. This type of game, I think all the players that are at the club have the possibility to play, but the most important thing is to compete and to learn from us and from your team-mates.

‘That is because we are not young because we have young players. We are young because we need time to put everything together and then, with all the circumstances, to add more players back from injuries. I think it’s going to be very good in the future for our team, to increase our level.’

The Argentinian acknowledges that development has not always been a painless process during the first few months of the season, but insists that every set-back is another learning experience from which the team will learn important lessons and take a further step forward towards our goals.

‘Of course when you lose it’s difficult to take positive things, but I think it is part of the process to improve and to be more mature, because I think you need to feel the pain. You need to make the mistake, to fix it afterwards. That is a process of ups and downs, and we need to be more consistent.’

The difficult moments along the way so far haven’t dampened Pochettino’s excitement about what he believes this Chelsea team can become in the future, either.

‘I think we have a very talented group. I think at the moment it is that we are struggling because we have not had the luck that you need in some details, in some points. Too many problems, too many injured players, so that you cannot have something to manage better the situation.

‘But we are excited because I think it’s all about time, because I’ve seen the progress in the way that we see the things and we project the team is right. I think it is about time, to build the momentum and after that to give us a winning run.’