Mauricio Pochettino refused to blame Chelsea’s 4-1 defeat at Liverpool on referee Paul Tierney’s decision not to award his side multiple penalties.
The Londoners had no answer for Jurgen Klopp’s side at Anfield on Wednesday night as goals from Diogo Jota, Conor Bradley, Dominik Szoboszlai and Luis Diaz condemned the Stamford Bridge outfit to their joint-heaviest defeat of the Premier League season.
However, the Reds’ win had a tinge of controversy about it as Chelsea were denied several penalties in either half, first with Conor Gallagher going to ground after a coming together with Virgil van Dijk before Ben Chilwell was booked by Tierney for simulation shortly after. Raheem Sterling and Christopher Nkunku also saw their appeals for spot kicks waved away in the second half with the Londoners trailing the Reds by a handful of goals.
Speaking in his post-match press conference, Pochettino, though, refused to blame the defeat on the decisions made by Tierney and instead insisted his side’s performance at Anfield was “not good enough”.
“I think it’s not [right] to find excuses. The performance was not good enough from us. They deserved to win, they were better than us,” said Pochettino. “To talk about this type of action, today I don’t want to talk about that because that is part of football.
“But, being honest, we didn’t perform in the way we wanted to perform. They were better than us from the first action, during the 90 minutes. I think it is this type of game that you need to say, ‘Well done Liverpool’. In the final, we need to approach the game in a different way and we need to compete in a different way to what we did today.”
Asked what this hefty defeat could do for his Chelsea side less than four weeks before the two sides meet in the League Cup final at Wembley, Pochettino replied: “For sure we are going to be in Wembley and it is going to be different, neutral place and it is different. That is the feeling the players have. If we compete the same way as we did today, for sure it is going to be the same result.
“If we don’t improve it’s going to be difficult. But always the games are different. For us, it is about learning on this type of game. We are competing against a team that is on the top and is consistently challenging for the big trophies.
“It’s good for us to feel that we need to improve, it’s to realise to push ourselves a little bit more.”
