The most frustrating thing about the penalty incident against Everton last night was that it was the third time we have seen such things happen this season, and it’s not always been from the young players either.
Raheem Sterling has been involved in such incidents a couple of times, trying to take the ball from Cole Palmer. Then last night, it was Noni Madueke and Nicolas Jackson’s turn.
As I said in my match review last night and don’t need to go back over it in detail again, I was angry and truly disgusted to see this play out. I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing, and I’m annoyed that it took some of the attention away from an emphatic result and performance by Chelsea, spanking Everton 6-0!
We all needed this result so bad, and I know we all still enjoyed it and celebrated, but this incident was hovering over us and that is not acceptable by those involved.
I’ve mentioned so many times that Mauricio Pochettino should select a designated list of penalty takers and then incidents like this would never be seen, as long as the players respect and understand that. The penalty taker is Cole Palmer, and that is that.
It was only a few weeks ago that Pochettino was explaining to the media that his choice of penalty taker was to allow whoever felt confident enough to step up and take it in the moment. This was a recipe for chaos and disaster. But I was even more puzzled that he actually admitted that he has and had told the players that Palmer was the penalty taker. So if he did communicate that, this looks even worse on Jackson and Madueke and really does not bode well.
Pochettino was not happy after the game, and he really does deserve paise for how he reacted and the words he said after the game. It was refreshing to see him upset and instil immediate discipline to stop this happening again.
After the game, he said:
“I am going to tell you, to make clear; the players know, the staff know, the club know that the penalty taker is Cole Palmer. All that happened after is a shame. I am so, so upset about this situation.
“We were talking in the dressing room about the image that we send, because it’s Monday Night Football – every single country they were watching the game and we cannot send this type of image. It’s a shame. I want to apologise to the people and to our fans because that is unacceptable.
“The discipline is the most important thing for the team. That is a quality of the sport. Of course the players need to show that they have the hunger to score goals and everything but this type of situation, we are going to make a decision if that happens, we were talking in a very good way because we need to make the situation clear.
“But I am not going to accept again this type of behaviour. I am going to be very strong if something like this happens again. I was telling them and I promise this is not going to happen again. It is type of the process that we need to learn when you have a young squad that sometimes the personal aims are in front of the collective.
“When you ask me why we are not consistent, why we are not performing sometimes, and then we drop, it’s because of the standards. The young squad needs to have very clear the objective of the club. But at the same time they need to perform for the team. They need to learn really quick because we are at Chelsea and the demand is high.
“It’s not about punishment. It’s about to learn. They are young guys, they behave like this. I think it was very good the reaction of [Conor] Gallagher like a captain. I think we cannot show that type of behaviour. That is a punishment for everyone because they all know if Palmer is on the pitch, he is the taker from the day he started to play.
“We need to remember also when it was a very difficult situation. Remember Burnley? The penalty – nobody wanted to take it but he took the ball and showed the personality from there.
“Look, that happened. We were talking. I can explain all of what we were talking about there. That is a shame. I can only apologise and say it’s not going to happen. If they behave like a kid, here it is impossible.
“After the unbelievable game that we were playing from the beginning, to talk today about that, it’s a shame and it’s an unacceptable thing. We don’t deserve to talk about that. I apologise to the fans and to the people because the way we behave. It’s part of the process.
“It’s not easy to build a team. It’s not easy. That is why we need to learn and be strong in our decision. When I told you we have all the information to take and make a decision for the next season, that is the type of thing we need to pay attention [to].
“I think we all agree this type of behaviour cannot happen again and they are wrong.
“They are not experienced players that they really know what they are doing. They are young, they are kids and they need to experience some situations to learn.
“It’s like we are in a school. It’s now to show that they are wrong and now they need to learn. If they don’t learn, yes, after we will take some decisions. But now it’s about to learn, it’s to use this type of experience to go on and move on.”
I’m so pleased with these reactions and this is exactly what I would have been saying he should have said, if he didn’t react like this and tried to brush it under the rug instead. I think he has handled this perfectly and I respect him massively for this. No need for extra discipline I agree, but he has made is clear this can not and will not happen again.
I do maintain though, if he had just taken this stance in the first place by selecting and making it clear he had a designated penalty taker, which he did not because he already previously admitted that, then we would not even be having this conversation and this article would not even be written!
