Mauricio Pochettino has warned a pair of Chelsea players over their disciplinary issues ahead of their clash with Aston Villa on Sunday.
Summer signing Nicolas Jackson has been booked on four separate occasions for showing dissent to the referee and is now on the verge of a suspension.
With the Premier League clamping down on such behaviour, Pochettino insists the striker must adapt quickly, and has revealed he held a meeting with him and teammate Enzo Fernandez to discuss the issue.
“Today we were talking about that as we had a meeting with him and also Enzo,” said Pochettino at his pre-match press conference ahead of Sunday’s game against Aston Villa.
“A striker, four yellow cards only for talking with the referee. Not because of that, it is so cheap and it is going to bring a difficult situation to the team. He understood.
“Jackson is young, he is going to be a fantastic player. He needs to be calm and relaxed.
“We are talking about young players, you can blame me or blame us but they need time. There’s no doubt we have amazing talent but they need time.
“He needs to be clever and not protest to the referees. Maybe it’s because it’s his normal behaviour on the pitch, this season change the rules, he came from Spain and it’s different and the change is more sensitive about this. It is about adapting.
“I hope on Sunday we are not talking about him being clever and first action he is getting a yellow card.”
Jackson has scored just one goal for Chelsea thus far and has missed a number of presentable opportunites.
And with goalscoring a problem for Chelsea, the return of Armando Broja from injury could be a welcome boost.
But Pochettino insists scoring goals must be a collective effort.
He added: “He might be involved at the weekend, but it’s after eight or nine months that he’s been out so we can’t put responsibility on him,’ revealed the Chelsea manager.
“It must be a collective effort and not just offensive players but the whole team. We can’t expect that Broja will go and score with his first touch, he needs time.”
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