Chelsea manager Mauricio Pochettino has not shied away from making wild comments after games this season.
Sometimes you get a standard generic response, but when he gets upset, quotes pop up online that make you wonder, “Did he really mean that?”
To balance things out, I was completely right in saying that Chelsea’s team was “immature”.
This may not have necessarily happened in the context that some perceived it to be, but it was absolutely true.
But when Pochettino was asked about Cole Palmer’s absence during his press conference after Tuesday night’s 5-0 defeat to Arsenal,
the Argentine uttered a phrase that would have an impact on one of the young players who was desperate for a chance to return to the team.
“He’s our only player, the playmaker who connects all the lines of the team. When a player like that is out, it’s not easy to replace him.
Of course, Palmer has the potential to be an absolute superstar. Not only physically, but also in terms of football intelligence,
he is vastly superior to the rest of Chelsea’s squad, which exposes the flaws in the club’s reinforcement strategy.
Last night also showed that Chelsea’s management need to reduce their optimism about closing the gap to the top four.
Qualification for the Champions League will not be immediate.
But one player sits on the bench at the Emirates Stadium and wonders what he must do to earn another start in Chelsea’s starting XI,
which has a solid trio in its engine room with a consistent record. That was before Pochettino said something that didn’t bode well for his future at Chelsea.
Carney Chukwuemeka has started for Chelsea this season and his selection suggests Pochettino admires what the
England Under-20 international has to offer. He performed well against Liverpool and even scored a goal against West Ham United, but a knee injury kept him out of the Premier League until 13 January.
Since then, the 20-year-old has never played more than 24 minutes in a top-flight game, including against Liverpool,
which Chelsea were already losing 3-0. Five minutes into the performance, he scored a well-thought-out goal against Christopher Nkunku.
