Pochettino fate discussed as finger of blame pointed after Chelsea lose in final
Virgil van Dijk sprinting away after glancing in Liverpool’s winner will be the lasting image of Sunday’s Carabao Cup final vs Chelsea.
But the lasting soundbite undeniably belonged to Gary Neville in the Sky Sports commentary booth. "It's [Jurgen] Klopp's kids against the billion-pound bottle jobs," he screamed after Van Dijk’s extra-time winner.
Chelsea boss Mauricio Pochettino hit back at the comments, in a press conference which also included the revelation that his richly assembled squad were hoping for the comfort of a penalty shootout. That was despite the fact an injury-ravaged Liverpool squad were forced to play a clutch of inexperienced academy graduates.
And with the Carabao Cup eluding Chelsea, the FA Cup is their only hope of salvaging a campaign which could end with a bottom-half Premier League finish. So we’ve asked our team of Mirror Football writers who is really to blame for Chelsea’s malaise - the ‘billion-pound bottle jobs’ or the manager so emphatically failing to get a tune out of them?
John Cross
There is an easy answer on who is to blame for Chelsea’s billion pound bottle jobs. Everyone has to take their fair share. And that’s not me sidestepping the issue. But there’s something in every bit of the whole process.
Chelsea complete record-breaking Enzo Fernandez transfer after deadline day rush
The recruitment has been crazy. It’s lopsided, not thought through and they have spent ridiculous sums on players who have simply not been worth it.
Enzo Fernandez cost £105m. But you would never know it from his performance at Wembley. For that price, you expect a midfield dynamo who should be bossing the game.
Then you have Moises Caicedo for £115m. When he was at Brighton, I thought he was the best midfielder of his type bar none. So what’s happened? He’s gone to a club with a dressing room and squad which was never going to be easy to settle in. But surely some of the blame must come back to the manager for not getting the best out of him.
Enzo Fernandez has failed to live up to the hype since his mega-money transfer (Chelsea FC via Getty Images)The ownership. What a crazy carry on. Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali have used Chelsea as a plaything. Whatever you think of Roman Abramovich, he built a club, a culture and a winning machine. This lot have torn it down.
Which brings us back to Wembley. How can you succeed when you have a background like that? They played well in 90 minutes and should have won. But then collapsed in extra time and lost their nerve. Frankly, that’s Chelsea all over.
Mike Walters
As one social media comedian observed, after Chelsea's sixth Wembley cup final defeat on the bounce, you can take Mauricio Pochettino out of Tottenham - but you can't take Spurs out of Poch Spice.
The Blues didn't just miss the boat in the Carabao Cup final: They let a huge cruise liner sail up the Thames past Chelsea Harbour without setting a foot on the gangplank.
If you can't beat Liverpool when virtually their whole first team is missing, when are you going to beat them?
And if you can't polish them off in extra time when they are dropping like flies (or, in Ryan Gravenberch's case, carried out on a stretcher after a poor Moises Caicedo challenge), what more do you want?
Sorry, but Chelsea's failure to seize the day was very, er... Spursy. And the fans don't like that one bit.
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Pochettino is an amiable fellow, but he's had an easy ride for a bloke with a £1billion squad who are 17 points off the top four, in the bottom half of the Premier League and now cling to the FA Cup as their only hope of a trophy - or that will be three seasons without a trophy.
And at Chelsea, when the lid stays on the silver polish, there's only one person who carries the can.
Chelsea owner Todd Boehly has overseen a scattergun transfer approach (Getty Images)Neil McLeman
Take your pick if you want to try and assess Chelsea’s progress under Mauricio Pochettino in the Carabao Cup final: the final 30 minutes of normal time when they cut the Liverpool rearguard to shreds and had clear chances to score. Or the meek surrender in extra time when they lamely allowed their opponents to take control.
Such inconsistency has summed up this season under the Argentine. The wins at Aston Villa and Crystal Palace and then the draw at Manchester City suggested a corner had been turned.
But the fundamental blame lies with Chelsea’s inconsistent recent transfer policy, even pre-dating the supermarket sweep carried out by the new American owners in the last transfer windows.
Todd Boehly and Clearwater Capital have managed to spend £1bn without buying a top-class goalkeeper or centre-forward. But Romelu Lukaku, Kai Havertz and Timo Werner were bought before and did not work either.
Watching Mateo Kovacic, who was sold for £25m last summer, show his understated efficiency in the Manchester City midfield against Bournemouth illustrated how Chelsea have got their transfer policy wrong in the blend between youth and experience. The team which won the 2021 Champions League final has gone - Ben Chilwell was the only remaining starter on Sunday - and proven winners need to be added to the undoubted potential in the squad to win again.
Tom Victor
Mauricio Pochettino hasn’t had the easiest of tasks at Chelsea, but he’s hardly helping himself.
Playing for penalties against a Liverpool side packed with inexperienced youngsters is one thing, but admitting to it as if that was a grand masterplan is another entirely. The Blues had time to force the issue, and surely there are plenty of fans who would have rather they lost by going for it rather than in the manner they did.
Of course the players aren’t blameless, but they didn’t ask to cost £1billion, so it’s hard to see what levelling the ‘billion pound bottlejobs’ accusation does besides showing off you know how alliteration works. Plenty saw Pochettino’s first season as a bit of a free hit and whether or not you think they were right to do so, it’s arguably best to judge in May rather than February.
Even so, the manager has hardly helped himself with those comments. Was he really expecting people to say ‘Oh? You were just playing for penalties? That’s fine then’?
Alan Smith
Both must share the blame for Sunday’s loss but it is hard not to conclude that they have been set up to fail by bizarre recruitment at a club that is still searching for its new identity.
Will Pochettino reflect on decisions that backfired? Of course – not least moving Cole Palmer centrally when he appeared their most threatening player on the right wing.
But above all their extra-time shirking was the result of a team lacking leadership. Can the young players be blamed for that? No. The biggest difference was they lacked a figure similar to Virgil van Dijk.
Ben Chilwell, the captain, last week said he is still getting used to his role as a senior figure and cramped up three times late on. For all his attacking talent, Raheem Sterling has never been leadership material. Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo? Give it a rest. Beyond that the team was full of players not long out of nappies.
Yet to blame any of those individuals would be misplaced. It’s not their fault they have been signed to a project that is still missing vital ingredients.
Nathan Ridley
Mauricio Pochettino isn't doing a great job - one look at the Premier League should tell you that - but as far as yesterday goes, I don't get the outrage. Chelsea's players had plenty of opportunities to win the game and most of their problems were of their own making.
Yes, the game-plan in extra-time was suspect, but Pochettino doesn't have a Virgil van Dijk or even a Wataru Endo who he can rely on to step up and guide their younger teammates through periods of adversity - although Raheem Sterling should've become that man by now.
Pochettino is under pressure after a poor start to his Chelsea tenureThe blame for Chelsea being unable to rise to the occasion should actually go to Todd Boehly and the Blues' recruitment team, who've decided to cobble together a horde of young talents who should all still be honing their craft by learning from more experienced team-mates like they did at their former clubs.
There's no backbone to Pochettino's side, simply because most of his squad are still growing one themselves. Chelsea's issues are perhaps deeper than any of us realised during Graham Potter's era and I wouldn't bet against another six-year domestic trophy drought while Boehly and co continue to ignore the glaringly obvious fact that relying on rough diamonds without any solid rocks is futile.
Megan Feringa
Chelsea are weird. Countless moments during Sunday’s final, victory felt undeniably theirs, only for the Chelsea players to reach into the jaws of victory and snatch defeat out. The missed chances are on them. Yet, Pochettino hardly affected anything.
Klopp’s three extra-time substitutions were checkmate, Pochettino either stumbling in the glare of Klopp’s kids’ skimpy age or in the realisation that even these rangy, shaggy haired boys had more purpose inculcated in them than his entire team.
Maybe we should be zooming out to find blame. Is it surprising that a team so randomly chucked together as if on a mad-cap night on Football Manager looks exactly like this? Is there a manager who could tease out coherency from something so jumbled and miscellaneous?
‘Klopp’s kids’ is potentially unfair, Chelsea boasted the youngest average age by the time the famously inveterate Van Dijk headed home. Yet where both sides had their fair share of inexperience, it was Chelsea who looked so bereft of anything tangible. A video game YouTube special. And that goes up to the very top.
HAVE YOUR SAY! Who do you think is to blame for Chelsea's struggles this season? Let us know in the comments
Ben Husband
Spending a billion on overpriced and overrated youngsters may have made Chelsea a significantly poorer football team, but it’s not bad when you’re in a crisis.
It may come as a surprise that Pochettino’s starting - and finishing - XI was actually younger than their opponents…but that of course misses the point entirely.
Yes, Enzo Fernadez is only 23, Mykhaylo Mudryk the same age and Moises Caicedo a year younger. The fact their combined cost was more than £300m is by the by when it comes to face-saving exercises.
The fact of the matter is that Chelsea have recruited and overpaid for a squad not fit for purpose. And in charge of that squad is a manager who appears to have almost checked out on elite football entirely.
So who’s to blame? Take your pick I suppose, but the easiest to move on will be Pochettino and he should have no complaints when it inevitably happens.
Gary Neville's brutal dig at Chelsea's flops has quickly gone viral (PA)Daniel Orme
Would it be rogue to suggest neither of Mauricio Pochettino nor his underperforming stars are to blame for the club’s current mire? There’s no doubt both of them need to shoulder some of the responsibility but those above Pochettino should look at themselves.
Todd Boehly’s scattergun approach in the transfer market - and when it comes to managers for that matter - has left the Blues with an overpriced squad not fit for purpose. Without a clear identity and ethos among the squad, there is no surprise that Chelsea struggled to match up against the sheer passion and drive to win that Liverpool showed at Wembley.
Some will certainly argue that a manager possessing the talents like Pochettino does should be doing better at getting a tune out of the squad regardless - and yes, that is the case. But given that he has had very little control so far at Stamford Bridge, there needs to be some sympathy.
With the pressure now off when it comes to trophies and potentially a top-four finish, most will hope the Blues can take the shackles off. If not, the spotlight could potentially move from the club hierarchy to Pochettino himself.
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