Mauricio Pochettino accuses his Chelsea players of 'giving up' in 5-0 London derby defeat at Arsenal as Blues boss blasts: 'When we have bad days, we are so bad'

Chelsea endured their heaviest-ever defeat by Arsenal as Mikel Arteta’s team returned to the top of the Premier League, while Mauricio Pochettino accused his players of 'giving up'.

This performance piled the pressure back on Pochettino, who admitted afterwards that they will never deserve European football if they perform as pitifully as this.

Leandro Trossard kickstarted this humiliation of Chelsea by scoring after four minutes before Arsenal took charge in the second half, with Ben White and Kai Havertz each grabbing two goals. 

The Emirates away end was practically empty before the end with Chelsea having now conceded 57 goals this season – their most in a Premier League campaign and with six games still to go.

With Aston Villa and Tottenham next, Pochettino said: ‘We talked at half-time about how it is not possible to start the game like this. But we started in a bad way again. We conceded two goals and in this moment, the team gave up. We were not in the game.

‘It is impossible to see Saturday at Wembley, a fantastic performance, competing really well against Manchester City, one of the best in the world, and then today. You can lose a game, and Arsenal are fighting for the Premier League, but the way we competed three days ago and today, there is no excuse.

‘Three days ago, fantastic game, great performance, deserved to go to the final. Today, you can use any words to describe our performance. Our standards are not sustained for the bad days. When we have bad days, we are so bad. When we are good, we are capable of everything.’

Arteta said he felt sorry for Pochettino after this ruthless performance, saying: ‘All the sympathy in the world with everything that he has been through. When you look at his team and analyse their last seven games, they deserved to win every match. They played big teams and they deserved to beat all of them. Hopefully things will turn around and he can get what he deserves.’

On his own team, who will face Tottenham next this Sunday, Arteta added: ‘Let's enjoy tonight and let's go back to work.’