Chelsea manager Mauricio Pochettino has accused his players of ‘giving up’ following a humiliating 5-0 defeat to Arsenal in a London derby. The performance has piled pressure on Pochettino, who admitted afterwards that his team will never deserve European football if they perform as pitifully as they did against Arsenal. Leandro Trossard opened the scoring for Arsenal after just four minutes, and the Gunners took control in the second half with Ben White and Kai Havertz each grabbing two goals. The Emirates Stadium was practically empty before the end as Chelsea conceded their 57th goal of the season – their most in a Premier League campaign with six games still to go. With Aston Villa and Tottenham next on the fixture list, Pochettino said: ‘We talked at half-time about how it is not possible to start the game like this. But we started in a bad way again. We conceded two goals and in this moment, the team gave up. We were not in the game. ‘
‘It is impossible to see Saturday at Wembley, a fantastic performance, competing really well against Manchester City, one of the best in the world, and then today. You can lose a game, and Arsenal are fighting for the Premier League, but the way we competed three days ago and today, there is no excuse. ‘
‘Three days ago, fantastic game, great performance, deserved to go to the final. Today, you can use any words to describe our performance. Our standards are not sustained for the bad days. When we have bad days, we are so bad. When we are good, we are capable of everything.’
Arteta said he felt sorry for Pochettino after the ruthless performance, saying: ‘All the sympathy in the world with everything that he has been through. When you look at his team and analyse their last seven games, they deserved to win every match. They played big teams and they deserved to beat all of them. Hopefully things will turn around and he can get what he deserves.’
On his own team, who will face Tottenham next this Sunday, Arteta added: ‘Let’s enjoy tonight and let’s go back to work.’
