Stan Collymore claims videos of Chelsea players smiling means they lack the humility of their counterparts at Liverpool.
Thomas Tuchel’s side dropped to third place in the Premier League after their 3-2 defeat to West Ham on Saturday, but remain just two points behind league leaders Manchester City and are top of their Champions League group.
But Collymore believes the Blues aren’t focused on winning the Premier League as they are still basking in the glory of Champions League success last term.
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While the Liverpool players remained “grounded” and “business-like” after they won the Champions League, Chelsea have a poor mentality.
Collymore wrote in his column for the Mirror: ‘If you go back to the start of the 2019-20 season, after Liverpool had won the Champions League and had been runners-up on record points in the Premier League, I saw a really cold, business-like attitude from them when they reported back for pre-season.
‘I remember seeing videos of players and it was just a handshake, a little smile, and very much a feeling of, “We’re back on it, this is going to be a big season for us and this is where the work really starts”.
‘I remember watching Virgil Van Dijk almost on a loop with a deadpan face saying: “We’ve achieved nothing yet”.
‘There was a humility and a grounded nature about such as Van Dijk, Andy Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold that I’m not seeing and hearing from some Chelsea players.
‘And it makes me wonder if what is essentially a young Chelsea team are enjoying the success they have had even one per cent too much.
‘There seems to be a feeling of, “Ah, we’ve won the Champions League so it’s an absolute shoo-in that we’re going to be in the conversation for the league”, and that’s not the right mentality, because it only takes three players to start thinking or feeling that way for it to become a bit of problem.
‘What I want to see now, then, is footage of Mason Mount on the training ground drilling balls into the back of the net instead of him smiling and telling me how lucky and blessed he is.
‘I don’t want to hear about Jorginho and the Ballon d’Or, and I don’t want to hear about Antonio Rudiger being the best defender since Franz Beckenbauer or whoever.
‘The only person at Chelsea I want to hear from is Thomas Tuchel and when that’s the case every team they come up against will know their ruthlessness is back.’
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