“See you later” – Gus Poyet on how his old team shocked the world and blew up predictions with summer success | OneFootball

Former Chelsea man Gus Poyet has always been an interesting character and always gives a good interview, so it was great to see his summer thoughts on his old club and their project.

Poyet backs Blues to dominate after going to “higher level”

“I think that [Club World Cup] put Chelsea on a higher level, because you can train well, you can play well, you can be outstanding technically as a team, individually, but when you win trophies here in the head, it makes you bigger,” Poyet told Hayters.

“And I’m sure it’s going to help Chelsea massively, winning in Europe and winning the Club World Cup. So now it’s a different responsibility, but I think Chelsea are better now.

“Nobody was expecting Chelsea to win. Everybody was talking about Real Madrid, PSG, blah, blah, blah, the Brazilians. And then Chelsea, bam, bam, bam, bam. See you later.”

He emphasised how much winning trophies would help this team mentally – and getting two in two months is a special bonus.

You can see Gus speaking in the clip embedded here:

Chelsea’s double summer success transforms perceptions

It certainly felt that the combination of the Conference League followed by the Club World Cup gave a really unique chance for the Blues to transform their public image.

The first meant they were in Europe, albeit playing smaller teams, culminating in a trophy win that everyone expected, but nobody was impressed by.

Then the Club World Cup provided the reverse – a tournament against the very biggest teams, which they weren’t expected to win.

Wining that then forced everyone to reconsider the Conference League success a little and admit that maybe the progress the team made there and the lessons they learned, as well as the momentum they had built up, contributed hugely to the Club World Cup success.