MAURICO POCHETTINO has hit out at Gary Neville AGAIN as Chelsea delivered a response to his “billion pound bottle jobs” jibe.
Conor Gallagher fired the Blues in the FA Cup quarter-final by the skin of their teeth with eight seconds of normal time remaining.
Chelsea fell behind early on when a defensive error led to Mateo Joseph scoring his first senior goal as Leeds went ahead after only nine minutes.
Nicolas Jackson made it 1-1 then Mykhailo Mudryk gave Chelsea a 37th-minute lead before Joseph was on target again to level the scores.
Pochettino said: “It’s like Gary, my friend, what have you done? His opinion now is a run and a run and a run. I cannot be upbeat about that.
“With all my love to Gary, it is not fair to use this type of word for a team that is so brave and a club that always shows it fights for big things.
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“What can we do? Now only with this type of performance, show that we are brave, can win games, and of course, nothing to say, we keep moving.
“It is not important for the team, it is not important for us, because we know who we are and how we behave and why we lost the game against Liverpool is nothing to do with this.
“It is because of all different things. You need to accept opinions. But that is not for us.
“We know we are brave, working hard, and if people want to be run and run and run this comment… look, nothing to say. It is opinion and that’s it. We won.”
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Neville’s blast came after Chelsea’s League Cup loss to Jurgen Klop’s Liverpool.
He said: “Klopp’s kids against the blue billion-pound bottlejobs”.
Explaining his dig, Neville later clarified: “I feel bad now! No, look, I’m not going to sit here and say it was an instinctive commentary moment… I mean, it was instinctive because I didn’t know what was going to happen in extra-time.
“But Peter [Drury] did about 35 seconds after the goal and Carra did about 25 seconds and I was getting angrier. Grab this opportunity, don’t have regrets!
“Just from a playing point of view, the idea of a team not seizing the day, seizing the moment, grabbing the opportunity, all those things we say to each other in lives as young people, that we want a team to grab this moment. Chelsea shrunk.
“I used the word “shrunk” and maybe “bottle” is a very strong word, but playing with absolute fear, froze, whatever you want to call it, that’s what we saw in extra-time.
“Ultimately, I don’t want that tag to stick with them because the reality is that there are a lot of talented young players there who may go on.”
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
