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.
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.
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.