Chelsea: Every player fighting for Mauricio Pochettino after team meeting, says Trevoh Chalobah

The squad held a meeting after Sunday’s Carabao Cup Final defeat
Nizaar Kinsella29 February 2024

Chelsea players showed they remain behind Mauricio Pochettino last night after a team meeting in the wake of their Carabao Cup Final defeat, says Trevoh Chalobah.

Pochettino and his squad held what has been described as a routine but productive meeting at Cobham at the start of the week following Sunday's Wembley defeat by Liverpool.

Chelsea responded to that disappointment last night as they beat Leeds 3-2 in the FA Cup to keep their season alive and ease some of the pressure on Pochettino.

Chalobah insists the players will "fight" for Pochettino and says they are motivated to prove their critics wrong after being labelled "billion-pound bottlejobs" by Sky Sports' Gary Neville.

Asked whether the players still believe in Pochettino, Chalobah said: "He is a brilliant manager who will always protect us. We are always going to fight for him. We will always fight for the manager, and we showed that today."

Trevoh Chalobah and Mauricio Pochettino at full-time
John Walton/PA Wire

On the team meeting, in which both Pochettino and players had their say, Chalobah said: "It was just to bring us all together... sit down and know we are all in this together. It's not an individual thing with the manager in one corner [and us in the other]."

Chalobah admits Virgil van Dijk's late winner in extra-time at Wembley felt "like being stabbed in the heart", but says they must "block out all the noise".

"We just try to focus on what's in the camp and what's between us," he said. "We are all human beings and it can affect us somehow and it did. But as footballers, we've got to bounce back, and we did. We have the opportunity to make things right, and we did that today."

Chalobah made his first start of the season last night following a campaign disrupted by injury.

We are all human beings and it can affect us somehow and it did.

The 24-year-old has been linked with a move and doubts remain over his future at Stamford Bridge.

"With all the noise going on around me, I just tried to stay focused on me being at the club and how much I love the club," he said. "I will fight, no matter what, whether I play or I don't play."

Chelsea have been drawn at home against Leicester in the FA Cup quarter-finals and they face Brentford on Saturday as they bid to qualify for Europe through the Premier League.

Chalobah insists they still have plenty to play for this season. "It's a new bunch of lads, a new group," he said. "We had our first final together and, hopefully, there will be many more. We just need to learn from that one. We have a big opportunity to get to Wembley again."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in