Premier League footballers Michail Antonio and Tom Cairney have expressed their disbelief at Mauricio Pochettino’s pre-match comments ahead of Chelsea’s defeat to Arsenal.
The Argentine’s comments have been put under the microscope after he urged his team to step up and prove they weren’t “Cole Palmer FC.”
The comments backfired spectacularly as the Blues turned in arguably their worst performance of the season against their rivals.
The 52 year old’s comments about Palmer have been met with confusion, given Chelsea’s over reliance on the 21-year-old, and before the Arsenal Pochhettio said:
“It is a good challenge if Palmer is not available tomorrow. It’s a good challenge for his teammates or those in a similar position.
“If I were them, I would be motivated to go there tomorrow and show that this is Chelsea Football Club, not Cole Palmer Football Club.”
West Ham forward Antonio laughed at how the whole situation had panned out.
“What is crazy is the gaffer comes out and saying Cole Palmer FC, and then he gets ill, and this 5-0, it can’t be written any better than that”, he told The Footballer’s Football Podcast.
Fulham’s Cairney added he felt Pochettino’s comments might not have been the most inspiring for his team.
He said: “I’m surprised he said that in his pre-match thing anyway to be fair. Are we Cole Palmer FC?
“I don’t think you can say that anyway. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Pep (Guardiola) say when he had (Lionel) Messi, we’re just a Messi team.”
The Blues will be desperate to return to form in Saturday night’s game against Aston Villa, knowing they need a win to keep their hopes alive of qualifying for European football next season.
Chelsea have been handed a huge boost ahead of the game with Cole Palmer fit and available for selection, but the Blues will be without 12 first team players through injury.
