Ally McCoist has defended Chelsea following some of the criticism they have received following their 1-0 defeat to Liverpool in the Carabao Cup final yesterday.
With Chelsea unable to beat a Liverpool side missing key players and filled with youngsters, Gary Neville described Mauricio Pochettino‘s team as “bottle jobs”.
However, Ally McCoist, speaking on talkSPORT, thinks the Manchester United legend has gone too far and has defended the Blues.
Whatever the case, Chelsea definitely deserve some form of criticism for how they performed at Wembley.
They had enough in their arsenal to at least score against a Liverpool team that were not at full strength, yet Pochettino has claimed that his players wanted penalties once it got to extra time.
Ally McCoist defends Chelsea
McCoist thinks calling Chelsea bottle jobs is a bit excessive.
On Neville’s criticism of Pochettino’s side, the Rangers legend said: “I think it’s unfair, I think it’s unfair. I think you normally hear it from people that have never been there.
“It’s the first time I’ve kind of heard it from somebody that has been there like Gary, to be fair to him. But I disagree with him. Bottle jobs is far too strong.”
Are Chelsea bottle jobs?
We do not think it is a completely accurate statement. The Blues were never winning the match at any stage and are still quite a young team themselves.
In fact, according to Sky Sports, at the end of the Carabao Cup final, the average age of Chelsea’s XI was actually lower than Liverpool’s.
Nevertheless, you can still critique them. They had good opportunities to score and hoping for penalties when there is still a chance to win the game in extra time is just not the way to go. Pochettino’s men found that out the hard way yesterday.
Again, this is a young Chelsea team, so hopefully they can learn from all the mistakes that they made at Wembley.
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