Emile Heskey will be stunned if Mauricio Pochettino isn't given time to rebuild Chelsea, who are beginning to show signs of life under the former Tottenham boss.
Chelsea have spent over £1billion in the transfer market in 18 months since Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital took over, and they have been inconsistent since embarking on another spending spree ahead of Pochettino's first campaign in charge.
After a below-par start under the Argentine, Chelsea have shown encouraging signs in recent weeks, thrashing nine-man Tottenham 4-1 in a remarkable London derby before playing out a thrilling 4-4 draw with Manchester City on Sunday.
That latter game – the first in the Premier League to feature four equalising goals since Liverpool and Arsenal's iconic 4-4 draw in April 2009 – saw Cole Palmer convert a 95th-minute penalty to deny his former club victory.
Chelsea went into the November international break five points adrift of the Premier League's top six, and with the team starting to show positive signs, Heskey believes Boehly will have greater patience with Pochettino than he did with predecessors Graham Potter and Thomas Tuchel.
"If you haven't negotiated that you need time at Chelsea, a club that was going through so much turmoil at that time, it would be silly," Heskey told Stats Perform.
"I'd be very surprised if he hasn't gone through that with them; 'We need time to actually build this and make sure we've got the time'.
"The reality is that if you look at some of their games, they've battered teams but not won. So there's something else there in play where the confidence of the players to go and finish, they've lost that.
"You can't say that you created 26 chances and not scored. There's something right there because you're creating 26 chances, but something's fundamentally wrong when that composure to finish isn't there.
"That could be with the stadium, the crowd, the tension that comes with that. They've never had it before because you've had all these top forwards who were just banging in goals.
"They were ruthless. They were relentless. Now they haven't got that, they need something.
"They've got players that need an arm around them, and they've got players that are low on confidence. How do you bring them back up?"
Chelsea are yet to win a trophy under the Boehly regime, though Pochettino has led them to the quarter-finals of the EFL Cup, a competition which appears wide open with City, Manchester United, Spurs and Arsenal already being knocked out.
Heskey won that competition four times during his playing career, twice with Leicester City and twice with Liverpool, also finishing on the losing side in another two finals.
While many consider Chelsea among the favourites to win the trophy, Heskey feels they face a tough task in the last eight, adding: "If I look at the next round, they've got Newcastle and that's not an easy job.
"Newcastle are flying at this moment in time. And for me, if I'm Eddie Howe, that's the competition I want to win."
Bristol City Women 0-4 Man City Women: Hosts relegated as Fowler double inspires WSL leaders
Mary Fowler scored twice to set WSL leaders Manchester City on their way to a 4-0 rout of Bristol City, who suffered relegation as a result, on Sunday.
With Arsenal having drawn with Everton earlier in the day, Man City knew a victory would be enough to take the title race down to two teams.
That victory duly arrived in emphatic fashion, with all four of Man City's goals arriving in the second half.
Fowler's fantastic strike opened the scoring in the 62nd minute, with the Australia international doubling her tally soon after, paving the way for an Amy Rodgers own goal and Alex Greenwood's late header to seal a huge victory.
Arsenal are now out of the title race, with Chelsea - who have two games in hand on Gareth Taylor's team - the only side capable of catching Man City.
The Robins, meanwhile, will be playing in the second tier again next term.
Data Debrief: Bristol heading down with a whimper
Bristol City have failed to score in their last five games in the WSL, a run of 544 minutes without a goal.
They mustered just 0.09 expected goals (xG) to Man City's 3.4, with the visitors having now kept a clean sheet in nine of their 20 league games this season.
De Rossi demands more from 'tired' Roma ahead of crunch run
Daniele De Rossi acknowledged his Roma team may be tired, but he insisted they must not allow themselves to be embarrassed.
Roma fought back to draw 2-2 with last season's Serie A champions Napoli in a pulsating fixture on Sunday.
Tammy Abraham's late header secured a point for De Rossi's team, who took the lead through Paulo Dybala's penalty before going behind to goals from Matias Olivera and Victor Osimhen.
With Serie A set to have five teams in the Champions League next season, Roma occupy fifth spot with four matches remaining, but sixth-placed Atalanta are just two points behind with a game in hand.
There is also the small matter of a Europa League semi-final against Bundesliga champions Bayer Leverkusen on the cards over the coming weeks, and De Rossi set the stall out.
"We drew, it is not a result to throw away, but it is not the result or the performance that we wanted," Roma coach Daniele De Rossi told Sky Sports Italia.
"At times you can steal the ball off Napoli, but we then gave it back again too many times. Napoli had a lot of chances in the first half, we did better in the second, but we have to do better.
"Look, we are tired, but we cannot start thinking that we’re tired and that means we can be embarrassed in the final few weeks of the season."
Roma host Leverkusen on Thursday before taking on Juventus on May 5, with a crunch clash against Atalanta – who are also into the Europa League semi-finals – set to follow after the away leg against Xabi Alonso's team.
Key to a successful end to the campaign for Roma will be keeping Dybala fit. The Argentine has been involved in the joint-most goals (12) in Serie A since the turn of the year, scoring nine and setting up three, level with Juve's Dusan Vlahovic.
PSG's latest Ligue 1 title arrives as Monaco lose to Lyon
Paris Saint-Germain have been crowned as Ligue 1 champions after Lyon overcame Monaco 3-2 on Sunday.
A 4-1 midweek win over Lorient ensured that one more victory would be enough for Luis Enrique's team to get over the line, but PSG failed to get the job done themselves when they faced relegation-threatened Le Havre on Saturday.
That game was the 700th match of the QSI era at PSG, and the club's 1,900th in France's top flight.
However, PSG's wait to win their third straight title did not last long, as less than 24 hours later, Lyon – who will face the Parisians in the final of the Coupe de France at the end of May – came out on top in a topsy turvy encounter with second-placed Monaco.
Substitute Malick Fofana was the matchwinner for Lyon, and ultimately the player who handed the title to PSG.
Wissam Ben Yedder had put Monaco ahead in the opening minute, but quickfire goals from Alexandre Lacazette and Said Benrahma turned the match on its head before half-time.
Ben Yedder netted his second to restore parity on the hour mark, and thought he had sealed his hat-trick when he volleyed in from a free-kick, only to have strayed offside.
With only a win good enough for Monaco to stay in the fight, the visitors were then caught out in the 84th minute, with Fofana racing onto Lacazette's throughball and finishing calmly.
After a dismal start to the season, relegation looked a real possibility for Lyon, but they are now, with three games remaining, still in with a shout of qualifying for Europe.
PSG on the other hand now have 12 Ligue 1 titles to their name, with 10 of those coming under QSI's ownership. Aside from the COVID-impacted 2019-20 season, five of their last six league titles have been secured before the start of May.
It also means Luis Enrique remains in the running for a treble in his first season at the club, with PSG taking on Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League semi-finals next week.
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