Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta shows true colours with Mauricio Pochettino comment after Chelsea win

Mikel Arteta and Mauricio Pochettino have both called for patience with Chelsea's young squad following Arsenal's emphatic 5-0 victory over the Blues.

Kai Havertz returned to haunt his old club with two goals, while Ben White also bagged a brace after Leandro Trossard opened the scoring, handing Chelsea a heavy defeat. The loss for Chelsea highlighted the gulf in quality between the two sides, despite the Blues' £1billion investment under Todd Boehly.

However, the majority of that spending spree has been on young players with potential as opposed to established stars, investing in a long-term plan. When questioned about any sympathy for Pochettino, with whom he shared a dressing room at Paris Saint-Germain, Arteta chose to offer support instead of criticism. The Arsenal manager, who has faced his own share of scrutiny in the past, expressed his solidarity with Pochettino.

"All the sympathy in the world," said Arteta. "With everything that he's been through and everything that he's been doing. He knows that. I've been on the other side as well.

"He's doing a great job, I think when you look at this team and analyse every second of them, they deserve to win many matches, they deserve to win against big teams. He's doing a really good job so hopefully things will turn around and be as he deserves."

Mauricio Pochettino, rather than berating his players for a lacklustre performance, chose to back his young squad. He asked fans not to be "unfair" to the players and refused to blame the team at the very beginning of what he hopes to be a fruitful long-term project.

In response to whether he felt let down and embarrassed, Pochettino replied: "No. There are too many details and circumstances why this happened. That is the experience we need to make sure the team doesn't have in the future.

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"The club is building a new project, a new way to operate and of course, always that is a risk you need to take when you build a young squad, it takes some time with all the circumstances we are living.

"The circumstances aren't conducive to being more competitive, to improving, to maintaining consistency. That's why these types of games can happen when you face a team like this, which has been preparing to win the Premier League, to contest for big trophies over the last three or four years.

"I think we cannot blame the players. I am not going to blame the players. The circumstances exceed the players' performances. We can't fault young guys who came here and then, after dealing with some issues, needed to compete against a team battling for the Premier League."

"That is why you need to be careful. You cannot be unfair with our players. It is true that we are disappointed with our performance but I am not going to use a word that is not fair to describe our team, our players, our squad."