WATCH: Pochettino says Chelsea have taken a ‘massive step’ and are ‘growing very fast’ | OneFootball

Mauricio Pochettino believes his Chelsea side have taken a “massive step” following their 5-0 thrashing of West Ham.

First-half goals from Cole Palmer, Conor Gallagher and Noni Madueke plus a second-half double from Nicolas Jackson saw the Blues go seventh ahead of Manchester United, who play on Monday.

It followed a 2-0 win over London rivals Tottenham earlier in the week and Pochettino says he has been delighted with the progress he has seen from his team recently.

He said: “The assist for Noni to Jackson, that showed we learn, that we are smart. The situation with the penalty against Everton, we received so much criticism, but a young team always needs to make mistakes. Always you need to feel this situation to improve.

“Today was a great action from Noni to see how the group has started to believe, how they have started to feel between them. It is always a process that takes time. It can take one month, six months or one year but the most important thing is they have started to set the principles, start to live like a group of players to create all the links to compete.

“I am so pleased with that. We are part of this process, to help them to grow, to be more mature and keep improving in every aspect.

“It is a massive step but it is the step we wanted to reach. Now it is to evolve in other aspects and the possibility to go with tactical evolutions and we can improve from there but without principles, it is impossible to evolve in other aspects.

“After Tottenham I told you that the way we competed is fantastic and then to keep this momentum. I think this team is growing so much, very fast now because that is the minimum standard we need if we want to compete in this league.

“The maturity of Noni, not to be selfish and give the assist. This type of thing, when they start to appear, it is a very positive thing. It was tough to arrive here but now it is like everything is going fast and it is going to be fun because we have quality.”

Watch Pochettino’s full reaction to the win over West Ham:

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