The Blues were on the end of a 5-goal thrashing
It could have been 6, it could have even been 8 or 10 if Arsenal took all their chances. Make no mistake this was a thorough humiliation for Mauricio Pochettino’s side.
Chelsea arrived at the Emirates fresh off an encouraging performance in the FA Cup semi-final against Manchester City. The blues faced off against a somewhat jaded City team still hurting from their midweek Champions League exit at the hands of Real Madrid. Had Jackson taken some of their opportunities, Chelsea could have put the game beyond Guardiola’s team before Bernando Silva’s late winner.
So Chelsea fans could have been forgiven to think their team would at least put up a fight against an Arsenal team who Aston Villa has shown can be beaten but apart from some forays into the gunner’s box in the first half, Chelsea never looked like getting a draw let alone a win once Arsenal went ahead and by the time Havertz, a £65 million aquisition from Chelsea scored his second, it became a matter of how many Disasi and co will ship in at the back.
Pochettino defended his players in his post-match press conference but behind closed doors, the Manager needs to ask some tough questions from his young squad, it sums up Chelsea’s season that a 39 year old Thiago Silva is their best defender this season. Of course Pochettino could point to two domestic cup semi-finals as a sign of progress but for a club who have spent excess of 1bn in transfers, sitting in a lowly 9th position with 5 games remaining in the season should not be acceptable by Boehly and his team.
Of course, the new Chelsea owners are not ruthless in discarding managers like Roman Abramovich but they’ve also shown they are not afraid to make changes if things get worse and things might really get worse for this Chelsea team.
Feelings from Stamford Brigde indicates that Pochettino will be given time to shape this squad into winners but there’s also the lingering feeling that a bad start to next season might cost him his job.
For now, Chelsea fans can resign to writing off this season as a failed experiment and hope for a better run next season.