Marc Cucurella sends disciplinary warning to misbehaving Chelsea team-mates

The Blues have been seeing red of late, with sendings-off in three of their last four games and Spain international Marc Cucurella has warned his teammates that things must change

Marc Cucurella has warned Chelsea will “suffer” unless they solve their disciplinary issues. Chelsea have had three red cards in their last four games as Joao Pedro got his marching orders in the Champions League win over Benfica while Robert Sanchez and Trevoh Chalobah have been sent off in the Premier League.

The Blues will have to cope with a defensive crisis against Liverpool at Stamford Bridge on Saturday as Chalobah is suspended on top of injuries to Wesley Fofana, Tosin Adarabioyo and Levi Colwill. That has left Cucurella admitting that Chelsea cannot keep shooting themselves in the foot with red cards as it is costing them dear.

Cucurella says they must “improve” and learn lessons to be competitive this season as he says they must learn to deal better with setbacks. Chelsea were 1-0 up when Chalobah was sent off against Brighton and the Blues ended up losing 3-1.

Spain defender Cucurella said: “It's tough because there are a few challenges. Yes, we need to improve things. It's difficult to play with 10 men, it is tough, but it is not an excuse.

“We need to learn that with 10 men we can suffer. The last game against Brighton, we played the last 40 minutes with 10 men and they we lost the game.

“It is true we need to learn and not to concede easy goals. We need to keep improving. We have a lot of quality and talent. We need to learn and every game is a good opportunity to improve things.”

Cucurella is a defender renowned for playing on the edge himself as he is always fully committed but says the whole squad has to help younger players adapt to challenges.

He said: “I try to play my best to help the team. I put a lot of intensity to help the team and I think it is one of my qualities. I hope to continue in this good way! I think it is difficult to play for a big club. You feel a lot of responsibility and when you play for Chelsea you need to win every game. We are here to help the team. I think here we all try to put our best to help the team.

“I try to give my experience to the team and help the young lads. When I arrived here, I suffered tough moments but it became better. That's football, you have to suffer the tough moments because the good moments always arrive.”

It has been a patchy start to the Premier League season for Chelsea after their gruelling summer as they won the Club World Cup. They did put the Brighton defeat behind them by beating Benfica in the Champions League.

They also beat Liverpool at the tail end of last season and Cucurella says that proves Chelsea can compete with the best this season.

He added: “For sure, last season, Liverpool won the league last season and they deserved it. This season they started really strong. Our last games against Liverpool, they won the first game but here we won.

“We are ready to play these kinds of games and fight for the three points at home. Our last results at home were tough but it is a good opportunity to finish with three points before the international break.

“I think we are stronger this season. We know better the ideas from the manager. Some things we are working on for a long time. We have added new players and we need to learn to play with each other. We didn't have much pre-season to learn to play with each other.

“It is not an excuse because we have the quality and the talent. This is a long journey and we are just in the beginning so we need to keep going and every week is a good opportunity to fight for three points. Let's see where we end up at the end of the season.”