The Blues go into the break on the back of four consecutive losses and missing Jack Grealish, Ruben Dias, John Stones and Jeremy Doku with injury – as well as long-term absentees Oscar Bobb and Rodrigo, while several others having been carrying minor knocks or have only recently returned to the squad.
The boss believes a chance to rest, train and reset for those not on international duty is key to returning in two weeks with fresh impetus.
“I think everyone needs it, yeah,” said Pep.
“I think particularly in our heads it will be good for all of us.
“The players, for ourselves and hopefully Ruben and John Stones can come back and join us and hopefully the other players, too.
“I was a football player and many times I lost a lot of games four in a row, five in a row, six in a row.
“I never expect any different but for the fact we won in the past that we are special.
“People can believe that but it’s not true – you can lose four games in different competitions.
“You can lose it. If you ask me every single game that we lost, I will give you my opinion how we play the game.
“I know that after you win, everything is perfect for example against Fulham we won but we played miles worse than against Brighton and at Sporting Lisbon and at Spurs.
“We performed really well ,but we were not consistent enough to maintain this level that helped us win what we have won for many years.
“Hopefully in the future it will come back and if it not come back, we will learn from that and if we are not able to win, we will work to come back.
“And that is what it is about.
“Right now, we are not at our best, but hopefully we’ll come back and step by step do it as I have the feeling every game will be tough and the team has to recover to our best and we will see.”
Watch Pep’s embargoed section of his post-match Brighton press conference by playing the video above...
