After Tuesday’s 0:5 debacle in the London derby at Arsenal, Chelsea coach Mauricio Pochettino admitted that with similar performances, his team cannot think about cup positions. The “Blues” are ninth in the English league before the end of the season and are in danger of missing out on Europe twice in a row for the first time since the 1995/96 and 1996/97 seasons.
Chelsea suffered their heaviest defeat against Arsenal in the 29th round play-off. Leandro Trossard sent the Gunners into the lead in the fifth minute, and after the change of sides, Ben White and former Blues player Kai Havertz scored twice.
“When we succeed, we can beat anyone. But when we don’t, we are very bad,” Pochettino said at the press conference.
“We can’t stabilize our performance, that’s why we’re where we are in the table. We’ll give a great performance against Manchester City on Saturday and three days later we play like this,” recalled the Argentine coach of the English Cup semi-final, in which his team lost to the favorite 0-1.
Despite the big purchases, Chelsea did not manage to return to the elite even in the second season under new owner Todd Boehly.
“Now we are very disappointed with the result, so it is difficult to talk about the rest of the season and any goals. Do we deserve to go to the European Cups? Not with performances like this,” Pochettino told TNT television after the game with Arsenal.
Depending on the result of the FA Cup, up to seven teams from the Premier League can go through to the European Cups. Chelsea are three points behind sixth-placed Newcastle and seventh-placed Manchester United, with six games remaining for all three teams.
The big London club already plays on the field of fourth-placed Aston Villa on Saturday, and in the next round they have another derby at home against fifth-placed Tottenham, which Pochettino led between 2014 and 2019.
