Mauricio Pochettino’s entire post-game press conference on Monday was spent talking about the crazy penalty argument in the second half of that win over Everton, and he wasn’t happy about it. He stormed off at the end complaining about the fact that every question had been focused on the incident, which saw two of his players fighting like children over who got to take a spot kick.
So it was inevitable today that his first question would be about… exactly that. The coach tried to put it all to bed by explaining what the club had done:
“We were talking a lot after Monday. We have been practicing penalties and talking. We made it clear after the game, we had a meeting between the players and staff and the sporting directors, Paul and Laurence, were there,” Pochettino revealed.
“Now we need to move on. It’s about to be clever. They are clever and understood the situation. In one point, it was not an image we like but in another point, it’s good that the players want to take responsibility. But they need to respect the rules. Discipline is so important.”
We totally agree – and it is Pochettino’s management that allowed discipline to fall by the wayside .We hope that’s changed now.
Time to move on – if we can
Of course everyone wants to move on from this nonsense , but for us, and for many other Blues, it’s going to be hard to forget. The way that the players bickered over the ball in such a selfish manner was so illustrative of all the issues that seem to run deep in this squad.
Can the essentially self-involved nature of players willing to put themselves above the team be wiped away with a team meeting and some photo ops? Probably not, and it will stick in our mind for a long time.
