Fabrizio Romano has provided some insight into how Chelsea manager Mauricio Pochettino wants to deal with the situation involving the players who argued over who should take a penalty in the game against Everton on Monday night.
Although the Blues thrashed the Toffees 6-0 with one of their best performances of the season at Stamford Bridge, the game was marred by both Noni Madueke and Nicolas Jackson appearing to try to take a second-half penalty over normal spot kick taker Cole Palmer.
In the end, Palmer took it and scored, and Pochettino spoke about the incident after the game, insisting that the talented English youngster is his first choice penalty taker, and that he wouldn’t accept this kind of immature behaviour from his players.
Speaking exclusively to CaughtOffside for his latest Daily Briefing column, Romano played down talk of Pochettino fining the players involved or anything like that, with Chelsea seemingly keen for this not to blow up into a bigger story than it needs to be.
Chelsea penalty row – Fabrizio Romano’s insight
“We saw an extraordinary incident in Chelsea’s game against Everton on Monday night when a few of their players were arguing over who should take the penalty in the second half. Cole Palmer ended up taking it as usual, and scoring, and Mauricio Pochettino made it clear after the game that Palmer is his penalty taker,” Romano said.
“Pochettino was clearly angry and said these kind of things cannot happen, but I’ve been asked by fans since then about any further action and I thought I would offer my understanding of the situation.
“I don’t think we’re going to see anything like Chelsea fining the players, it will just be about clarifying the issue internally face to face. This is what Pochettino wanted to do, discuss face to face and clarify between them. Chelsea don’t want to make it a bigger story than it really is.”