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The Frank Leboeuf Chelsea FC column!

Myself vs Pochettino

Chelsea could only manage a 2-2 draw at home to Nottingham Forest last weekend and it all started with another goalkeeping error, this time from Edouard Mendy.

If a goalkeeper makes a mistake then you are going to pay straight after. A striker can miss the unmissable chance and get away with it, but when a goalkeeper makes a mistake and concede a goal, it’s a big deal.

We know Mendy has never been that good coming off his line and he really has to work on that. I don’t know what is going to happen next season and I’m not sure starting him was the right thing to do. But to be honest, Chelsea didn’t play well in the first half at all, Frank said that afterwards in the press conference. So somebody had to pay the price and in this case it was Mendy because of the first goal. But overall you have to blame everybody. If they were better we would have beat Nottingham Forest; come on you’re playing at Stamford Bridge and playing against a team fighting against relegation! You have to look at the big picture for this bad result.

I would say over all I saw a good performance from 18-year-old Lewis Hall. Every player needs to show consistency to make it at Chelsea. It’s nice to see young players coming through the academy and making the step up because it’s how it should work. I saw it with big names like John Terry, Jody Morris and now Mason Mount and others. That’s the future of Chelsea. You don’t always need to write a cheque to get a player when you have an academy like Chelsea’s.

I never like to be too hard on some players, I want to respect the man first and I want to respect the player. You don’t play for Liverpool, Man City, and Chelsea being an average player. But when Raheem Sterling arrived at Chelsea I said that he wasn’t the guy to bring you something else, something extra. If Guardiola decided to get rid of him then there must be a reason why. I said £50m was too much for him. But on the field he is not a leader, he is quite clumsy. Even if I was happy to see him scoring two goals against Forest, I have to say that I’m not happy with his performances overall since he arrived. He loses the ball too much, misses chances, and being just too clumsy. He is a big name but let’s say that you want to sell him now to any other club in the world, you will have nobody who will pay what we paid for him. I’m happy that he scored but I think it’s too late to change my mind on him and what he brings to the club.