Mauricio Pochettino has outlined why he believes attitude might be more essential than experience in high-pressure situations like this one ahead of Monday’s London derby against Tottenham Hotspur.

Mauricio Pochettino will take control of a youthful Chelsea team against his former side Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League on Monday evening, but he does not believe our inexperience will put us at a disadvantage in north London.

In an exclusive conversation, our head coach discussed the Blues’ next meeting, which will be many of his players’ first exposure to the great rivalry between the two teams, as well as a game and atmosphere of this scale.

Pochettino, on the other hand, is less concerned with individual experience, claiming that it is the group experience of playing together and getting to know each other that he is keen to establish with this group as soon as possible.

“I think the most important thing is to identify it in the right way,” he said. “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 Argentine concedes that development has not always been an easy process over the first few months of the season, but says that every setback is another learning experience from which the team will learn valuable lessons and progress toward 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.”

Pochettino’s excitement about what he believes this Chelsea team can become in the future hasn’t been tempered by the difficult moments along the way.

“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.”