Chelsea are now *very* used to losing cup finals, but it’s the timid acceptance of defeat from Mauricio Pochettino that’s the problem for the fans, who will never take to Mr Spurs.
Chelsea fans concerned by the appointment of Mauricio Pochettino had two main gripes: he’s not A Winner and he was Tottenham’s hero (same thing, amirite?). Sunday will have strengthened their points of contention and garnered more recruits to the #PochOut brigade, who stormed social media at the end of the defeat to Liverpool calling for his immediate sacking.
But actually, it’s not the Carabao Cup final defeat itself, or even the manner of it, that will have angered those fans as much as Pochettino’s reaction. There was a Spursy loser if ever they saw one.
“The players started to lose their energy. The team felt maybe penalties would be good for us.”
Very honest, and we didn’t need telling. It was pretty clear that Chelsea were knackered, and decided – presumably without actually discussing it – that they would see out the game and hope for the best with the spot-kicks. Given Chelsea have won just one major final penalty shoot-out this century (admittedly the most important one in the 2012 Champions League), losing four, including twice to Liverpool in 2022, it was quite the stance to take from the players.
It says at least as much about the manager, deemed weak (a Spursy synonym) by a big chunk of the fanbase before this game, that he would a) allow his players to have such a negative mindset and b) admit that to the world after the fact. Chelsea fans will extol the virtues of Jose Mourinho at any given opportunity – many of them were chanting his name as recently as last month – and while in the vast majority of instances that gushing praise is misplaced, and based on a Mourinho at least two iterations ago, on this occasion it’s hard to contend that ‘Mourinho would not have done that’.
Because even in defeat he was A Winner. He would have complained about the officiating, had a go at Klopp or his supposed children and left the press conference with four fingers brandished to the gathered media, to signify his four League Cup wins. The rest of the world would have called him out for being a pr*ck while Chelsea fans swooned. He also would not have respected the opinion of Gary Neville, who called Pochettino’s players “billion pound bottle-jobs” and saw very little in the way of riposte from the Chelsea manager.
“I have a good relationship with Gary and I don’t know if that’s how I can take this opinion. But I respect his opinion. Of course, we made a few changes with [Conor] Gallagher and [Ben] Chilwell in extra time, it is true we didn’t keep the energy of how we finished the second half.”
Pochettino later said Neville’s assessment was “not fair”, but it’s hardly the ‘bite back’ some media outlets claimed it to be, nor what Chelsea fans would hoped to hear. It was timid in the extreme. Mourinho wouldn’t have stood for it. Antonio Conte wouldn’t have stood for it. Thomas Tuchel wouldn’t have stood for it.
And it’s because of his character, not his ability as a manager, that Pochettino was doomed to fail at Chelsea, and – barring something extraordinary – won’t last beyond this season.
Chelsea have lost six domestic cup finals out of six in the last six years. They have been undeniably Spursy according to that most Spursy of metrics, but defeat for Pochettino was always going to be deemed the Spursiest of all, despite arguably more limp final defeats to Arsenal under Frank Lampard and Leicester under Tuchel.
And in accepting defeat with honest and humility, Pochettino bore no resemblance to the sort of managers Chelsea fans love. Faith that was lacking before has all but been extinguished in a man whose mistake isn’t being Spursy, but being Spursy about the Spursiness.
