Chelsea had been showing some promising signs of progress as Graham Potter attempts to gel his new-look squad into a team capable of competing at the highest level in the Premier League and Champions League, but suffered a setback with a disappointing performance in a 1-0 defeat to Southampton at Stamford Bridge last week.

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However, attention has quickly switched to what is ahead, namely a London derby away at Tottenham on Sunday afternoon, even if he admits it has not been an easy week.

‘It’s always tough when you lose,’ said Potter. ‘Certainly when you lose at home it’s very tough, but that’s normal. The response of the players has been really good. Of course we’ve had conversations and one-to-ones and we’ve talked and we’ve tried to put things into perspective as well, because that’s also important, but it’s been a tough week.’

Of course, it is not just our head coach and his players who have been feeling the pain of that defeat, and Potter acknowledges they are well aware of the supporters’ frustrations with recent results, knowing the disapproval that comes in difficult times goes hand-in-hand with the support you receive when things are going well.

Rather than dwell on those frustrations and talk endlessly about them, he instead chooses to accept the reactions and focus on giving the fans something to celebrate the only way he can, by producing victories on the pitch.

‘If you lose 1-0 to Southampton who are bottom of the league and you’re Chelsea then you expect fans to be upset, rightly so, and let their feelings be known, because they care. We accept that, that’s fair, I’ve had a lot of support from the supporters as well. I know there’s nothing I can say now that’s going to make the supporters happy about it, the solution is you have to win football matches.

'Results haven’t been good enough, 1-0 at home to Southampton isn’t good enough, people are entitled to be angry. My response is that I think there are also things which are a contributing factor to that result as well, but I’m not here today to convince them. My actions have got to convince them, the team have got to convince them. We’ve got to win football matches, there’s nothing I can say that will change that.’

One of those contributing factors has been the need to integrate a number of young new faces into his side, perhaps relying on them more than he would have liked at this early stage in their Blues careers due to injuries for some of his more experienced Premier League campaigners.

It is a challenge Potter admits is not an easy one, as he attempts to find a balance between showing patience with the new arrivals while also trying to match his and the club’s high short-term ambitions and dealing with the added expectations that comes with those signings.

‘It’s tough, it’s the toughest job in football. The club invested a lot of money in the squad, which adds to the pressure, which adds to the expectation, adds to the noise. But the players that we’ve got, they’re not 28-year-old 400-game Premier League players. They’re young players that you need to take time to adapt.

‘At the same time, with the injury situation that we’ve had, you’ve got to try to adapt and get them up to speed to play in the Premier League. That’s the position that we’ve been in. We thought we were making progress, then we had a first half against Southampton, the third game in a week, returning from a Champions League game, that was below par, then the sky can fall in.’

Our head coach also believes that finding the attacking combinations and momentum can be the most difficult thing for players still developing an understanding together, which goes some way to explain why that is the area of Chelsea’s game causing him the most concern at the moment.

However, Potter feels the solution is to focus on the next opponents and how best to create chances and score goals against them, rather than looking back at games and opportunities which have already been and gone, something reflected on the work he has been doing with his team at Cobham ahead of facing Tottenham.

‘We’ve looked at a few things,’ he continued. ‘Obviously I don’t want to articulate it too much as it might give our opponents something to think about.

‘From a training perspective we’ve tried to work on being positive, acting well, behaving well, behaving as a team that understands the responsibility, understands the position we’re in and acts in a way that we should.

‘If we perform to the level we did against Dortmund and if we perform to the level we did at the start of the West Ham game, we keep moving forward, I think we’ll score goals because we’ve got the players who can do it. The quality’s there.

‘When you’re integrating new players and young players into the team, it’s not so easy for everything to just click. The most difficult part of the game is the attacking part of the game, so it’s no surprise that you have to work a bit with that. In the situation we’ve been in, with players coming back from injury, to get that fluidity, to get that certainty in your attacking play, it’s a process.

‘I’ve spoken with individuals and as a group about how to attack against Tottenham, to focus on that. The past is the past and we need to focus on the next game, which is Tottenham, and how we can attack well there against a team that doesn’t give much away, defends with a back five, defends strong and deep, presses high when they can. So we’re trying to think about that.’