Mauricio Pochettino’s comments in the press conference after last night’s defeat are creating quite a stir.
The Chelsea boss said that his players had ultimately been playing for penalties, explaining the way that all their momentum from the end of regulation time died away.
This has made a lot of fans furious – why on earth did we let our foot off the opposition’s throat at the vital moment? But Matt Law of the Telegraph, who was in the stadium, said that he thought the coach’s comments had been misinterpreted.
My read of Pochettino’s press conference (I was in the room) was that he was saying the players were knackered and subconsciously started to play for penalties. I didn’t get any sense that he set them up to or told them to, or that the players consciously set out to.
— Matt Law (@Matt_Law_DT) February 26, 2024
Law says that Pochettino was saying that the players had only subconsciously started playing for penalties – it wasn’t anything coming from him. Athletic writer Liam Twomey then backed up this assertion.
This was my interpretation too (I was also in the room) https://t.co/YstWMpo5cO
— Liam Twomey (@liam_twomey) February 26, 2024
As others have pointed out in the comments below, the question then becomes why our players were so tired when they should have been infinitely fresher than their opposition in the circumstances.
