Pochettino was bold and brave vs Boro and it rightly paid off – Talk Chelsea

Chelsea are through to the League Cup final!! What an achievement that is after a rough period for the club and for the fans.

We are now just one game away from lifting some silverware, and once again with all that has gone on of late, that would be incredible.

We were rather gifted by many Middlesbrough mistakes and naivety from the manager. But we looked clinical, we created chances, we pressed intensely, and we scored some very good goals tonight.

The second half was professional, until we allowed them to get their goal and ruin the clean-sheet. But all in all, Chelsea looked up for this tonight and they looked full of quality and confidence all over the pitch.

Chelsea finished with 63% possession and 6 shots on target, scoring all 6. We had 13 attempts on goal.

We didn’t really have to get out of third gear and when the chances were presented to us, we certainly took them.

Manager/Player Ratings

Mauricio Pochettino – 9

The best I’ve seen from Pochettino tonight. The starting lineup was perfect and unexpected. He dropped Conor Gallagher to put the extra attacker in from the start in order to go searching for goals. Players played in their natural positions (Levi Colwill and Ben Chilwell). And the setup was spot on, as were the subs. We have been crying out for him to be bold and brave and that’s exactly what he was in this game, and it completely paid off!

He handed yet another debut to an academy player in the shape of Leo Castledine, and I even think how he used Enzo Fernandez tonight was good. It got stick, but really when you look at it closely, Enzo was playing as a box-to-box number 8, which is one of his better positions to play in. He was advanced at times yes (and actually ended up scoring from one of those positions), but without the ball he was dropping alongside Moises Caicedo as well. It worked, and he certainly wasn’t playing as a 10 like many claimed.

Djordje Petrovic – 7

He had very little to do tonight really and couldn’t do…

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Author : Simon Phillips

Publish date : 2024-01-24 23:31:27

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