One pundit has felt the need to explain his jibe at Chelsea from the weekend after a media frenzy occurred in the aftermath of it.
The word ‘bottlejob’ was being thrown around all over the place after Chelsea lost to Liverpool in The League Cup final.
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There is no doubt in my mind that Chelsea DID bottle the game, because it was there for the taking and with the amount of non-senior players Liverpool bought on in extra time, there is no excuses for Chelsea not going on to win that game. It was a HUGE opportunity, and they blew it miserably. To me, that is bottling the game.
But to call them bottlejobs collectively I think is harsh and not true. The team on the whole have proven lately that they can show a strong mentality and a togetherness when things are down, so overall they are not bottlejobs. But in this game, they DID bottle it. There is a difference.
Gary Neville of course was the commentator who said the now famous phrase, and he has responded to his comments via Sky Sports.
“In extra-time it’s been Klopp’s kids against the blue, billion-pound bottlejobs,” said Neville on commentary after Chelsea went a goal down.
Speaking on Monday Night Football, Neville took up his right of reply to further explain what he meant by the comments
“I’m not going to sit here and say it was an instinctive commentary moment. I mean it was instinctive as I didn’t know what was going to happen in extra time. Peter [Drury] did about 30 seconds after the goal went in and Carra had about 25 seconds.
“If you heard my commentary of Chelsea during extra-time, I was getting angrier with them from the first minute to around two minutes to go.
“I could smell the fear in Chelsea when I noticed they were sitting off Liverpool. Why were they letting these young lads and Jurgen Klopp grow in confidence?
“There was a chorus from the Liverpool fans for about five minutes because they could smell the blood and the fear in those blue shirts.
“At half-time, Mauricio Pochettino had to get the message into his players that they had 15 minutes to beat or not lose to a side that only had two players who would get into their starting XI – Luis Diaz and Virgil van Dijk.
“They needed to leave that pitch with no regrets. Chelsea had to grab the moment but they shrunk.”
