Liam Rosenior responded to criticism from pundits after Chelsea were beaten 1-0 by Arsenal in the Carabao Cup semi-final second leg.
Arsenal led 3-2 from the entertaining first leg at Stamford Bridge but Chelsea kept the handbrake on at the Emirates, with Rosenior changing his tactics and playing with five defenders.
The Blues, who had Cole Palmer on the bench for 60 minutes, did not pose much of an attacking threat and Arsenal booked their place at Wembley when former Chelsea player Kai Havertz popped up in the 97th minute.
But the negative approach from Chelsea led to passionate comments from those on punditry duty for Sky Sports. Former Arsenal midfielder Paul Merson said he was “flabbergasted” and added, “I honestly can’t believe what I’ve just watched”.
He claimed that Chelsea “never had a go” and went out “with an absolute wimp in the semi-final”.
Similarly, Jamie Redknapp said that Chelsea had to “throw caution to the wind” and believes there would have been regrets in the dressing room about not doing enough to try to win the game.
Rosenior’s side didn’t pose much of a threat at the Emirates. Image: Getty
Rosenior’s thinking was to keep the game tight and play on the nerves at the Emirates as they game went on. It didn’t work and criticism of the lack of intent followed, but Rosenior issued a response in his post-match press conference.
“I’ve been a pundit, it’s easy,” Rosenior said when asked about the criticism from pundits.
“It’s easy in hindsight. So if I go and attack the game and press really high and we concede two goals early, everyone says, ‘What’s he doing?’.
“That’s the reality of my job. If you lose games you’ll be criticised, if you win you’re a genius.”
In his Sky Sports interview with Patrick Davison, Rosenior praised the display from his team and said that though the result wasn’t a positive one, he was “sure Arsenal would have known today that they were in for a real tough game” as he claimed “not many teams come here and put on the level of performance that we have tonight”.
Chelsea had two shots on target in the game. Image: Getty
Firing back at that comment, one Chelsea fans on X wrote, “What exactly was the ‘performance’ Liam? We faced a team intent on not playing football and you set us up as if we were playing for a draw. What performance?”
A second added: “Performance? What performance? Did he forget that this wasn’t a league game but a knockout situation?”
A third concurred: “What performance? We didn’t even try”.
Arsenal will play the winner of the other semi-final between Manchester City and Newcastle on Wednesday night.
City take a 2-0 lead from the first leg into the second fixture at the Etihad Stadium.
Chelsea return to Premier League action on Saturday when they travel to play bottom club Wolves at Molineux.
