Inquiries regarding the incident that resulted in a few Chelsea players fighting during the second half of their victory against Everton were hurled at Mauricio Pochettino.
His Blues team beat the Toffees 6-0 in SW6 as they responded to Everton at Stamford Bridge in the ideal way. Following the match, Pochettino was questioned by a packed house of reporters about a variety of topics, including Cole Palmer, the Noni Madueke incident, the significance of the victory, and much more.
Talking about the Noni Madueke and Nicolas Jackson incident, Pochettino said that:-
“Yes, I think after we need to talk about the game but first of all I am going to tell you, to make clear; the players know, the staff know, the club know that the penalty taker is Cole Palmer. All that happened after is a shame. I am so, so upset about this situation.
“We were talking in the dressing room about the image that we send, because it’s Monday Night Football – every single country they were watching the game and we cannot send this type of image. It’s a shame. I want to apologise to the people and to our fans because that is unacceptable.
“The discipline is the most important thing for the team. That is a quality of the sport. Of course the players need to show that they have the hunger to score goals and everything but this type of situation, we are going to make a decision if that happens, we were talking in a very good way because we need to make the situation clear.
“But I am not going to accept again this type of behaviour. I am going to be very strong if something like this happens again. I was telling them and I promise this is not going to happen again. It is type of the process that we need to learn when you have a young squad that sometimes the personal aims are in front of the collective.
“When you ask me why we are not consistent, why we are not performing sometimes, and then we drop, it’s because of the standards. The young squad needs to have very clear the objective of the club. But at the same time they need to perform for the team.
“They need to learn really quick because we are at Chelsea and the demand is high. Saying that, I think we need to move on and talk about the game because 6-0 against a very good team like Everton. We scored six and kept a clean sheet, I think it’s about to be happy. No? Or maybe we can finish [the press conference].”
The Chelsea boss was asked if Noni or Jackson will be punished?
“No, no – it’s not about punishment. It’s about to learn. They are young guys, they behave like this. I think it was very good the reaction of [Conor] Gallagher like a captain. I think we cannot show that type of behaviour. That is a punishment for everyone because they all know if Palmer is on the pitch, he is the taker from the day he started to play.
“We need to remember also when it was a very difficult situation. Remember Burnley? The penalty – nobody wanted to take it but he took the ball and showed the personality from there.
“Look, that happened. We were talking. I can explain all of what we were talking about there. That is a shame. I can only apologise and say it’s not going to happen. If they behave like a kid, here it is impossible.
“After the unbelievable game that we were playing from the beginning, to talk today about that, it’s a shame and it’s an unacceptable thing. We don’t deserve to talk about that. I apologise to the fans and to the people because the way we behave. It’s part of the process.
“It’s not easy to build a team. It’s not easy. That is why we need to learn and be strong in our decision. When I told you we have all the information to take and make a decision for the next season, that is the type of thing we need to pay attention [to].”
Additionally, he was asked if either players apologised?-
“I think we all agree this type of behaviour cannot happen again and they are wrong.”
Futhermore, Mauricio Pochettino was asked if this will affect his team going forward:-
“No, no. It doesn’t work like this. They are not experienced players that they really know what they are doing. They are young, they are kids and they need to experience some situations to learn.
“It’s like we are in a school. It’s now to show that they are wrong and now they need to learn. If they don’t learn, yes, after we will take some decisions. But now it’s about to learn, it’s to use this type of experience to go on and move on.”
