Mauricio Pochettino is right: Chelsea's 'kids' must stop stropping over penalties & grow up fast if the Blues are ever going to get back to the top

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The 6-0 rout of Everton could have served as a turning point in Chelsea’s season, but instead it was marred by a needless fracas

Chelsea’s penchant for chaos this season seems to be inescapable. Things could not have been going much better against Everton on Monday night as the Blues were awarded a penalty shortly after the hour mark, already four goals to the good courtesy of an outrageous first-half hat-trick from Cole Palmer and a fine strike from Nicolas Jackson. What a time, then, for all hell to break loose.

With the match already won and only goal difference at stake, both Jackson and Noni Madueke seemed to believe they had a God-given right to take the meaningless spot-kick, racing to snatch the ball before engaging in a very public argument over who should have the responsibility.

After an excruciating few moments, designated-taker Palmer and captain Conor Gallagher stepped in, looking to pull rank, but that still wasn’t the end of the matter as Jackson and Madueke continued to argue their cases vociferously, even resorting to shoving their own team-mates. Once the debacle finally subsided, Palmer stepped up to slot the ball away and Chelsea added another in a 6-0 win, but the damage was already done.

“It is impossible to have this type of behaviour after this performance,” Pochettino said to Sky Sports after the game. “If we want to be a great team, we need to change and think in a collective way. They’re all involved in this situation. Next time they’re all out. This is not a joke.”

- Embarrassingly enough, this is not even the first time Chelsea’s players have rowed over a spot-kick this season. Back in October, Raheem Sterling tried to wrangle the ball from Palmer during the Premier League clash with Arsenal, with Enzo Fernandez forced to step in as adjudicator. Palmer eventually took it and, of course, scored.
  
  A repeat of that incident was threatened in March, but on that occasion Palmer willingly handed the responsibility over to Sterling in the FA Cup tie with Leicester, only for the 29-year-old to see his tame effort saved.
  
  Addressing the October incident after the game, Pochettino was vague in terms of who held the responsibility: “There are a few players who can take the penalty. It’s about their feelings. As a coaching staff we give them the responsibility to decide on the pitch,” he said.
  
  “It’s not only one player, that this player is going to be in charge. It shows that Cole was ready to take the two penalties he took. Normally it is going to be him if he is on the pitch. But if not I’d be happy with Raheem, with Nico (Jackson). For me the most important thing is to have the decision and the personality to go.”

‘You cannot behave like kids’

The Argentine took a far dimmer view of the squabble this time around, however, labelling his players ‘kids’ in a departure from the ambiguity of his previous answer and making it abundantly clear that Palmer is the designated taker when he is on the pitch

“The players know, the staff know, the club know that the penalty taker is Cole Palmer. All that happened after is a shame. I am so, so upset about this situation.

“We cannot send this type of image. It’s a shame. I want to apologise to the people and to our fans because that is unacceptable.

“The discipline is the most important thing for the team. Of course the players need to show that they have the hunger to score goals and everything but this type of situation, we were talking in a very good way because we need to make the situation clear.

“But I am not going to accept again this type of behaviour. I am going to be very strong if something like this happens again. I was telling them and I promise this is not going to happen again. It is type of the process that we need to learn when you have a young squad that sometimes the personal aims are in front of the collective.”

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Desire to succeed?

It could be viewed as a positive thing that, even at 4-0, Chelsea’s somewhat less prominent players are still desperate to make an impact and show their manager they have the cajones to step up to the plate, albeit the pressure was well and truly off when Paul Tierney pointed to the spot.

Winger Madueke has been peripheral all season despite some impressive cameos, including a fine goal in the draw with Sheffield United in the previous fixture. There is no doubt he will have been keen to prove a point to Pochettino on what was the first occasion he has started two league games in a row in 2023-24, with a regular wide role potentially up for grabs as Sterling and Mykhailo Mudryk struggle to lay any serious claim.

Jackson, meanwhile, seems hell-bent on winning over the Chelsea fanbase, having failed to convince certain sections of his qualities despite a creditable return of 13 goals in his debut season in English football, which he has complimented with five assists. He is volatile at the best of times, and in the past fiery players like Diego Costa and Didier Drogba have endeared themselves to the Blues faithful with shows of passion.
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Or youthful petulance?

However, Pochettino is right that there is a way you must conduct yourself and there is an obligation to control your emotions in that situation – especially with the score at 4-0, with 40,000 people watching on inside the stadium and millions more at home.

The scenes were nothing short of embarrassing – tarnishing what was otherwise the Blues’ best performance of the season by some stretch; Madueke and Jackson racing to snatch the ball from bystander Malo Gusto, the pair’s impassioned argument over who should be taking the penalty, Palmer and captain Gallagher taking an age to pull rank and demand the former assumed the responsibility, and Jackson’s ill-advised decision to rush back in to try to grab the ball. Shameful, the lot of it.

This was a real show of immaturity and a lack of progress, despite the fact there is a little over a month left of the season. Although Thiago Silva did his best to act as peacemaker, this flare-up had Chelsea’s young players at its heart, with none of Jackson (22), Madueke (22), Palmer (21), or Gallagher (23) covering themselves in glory. It is unsurprising that the manager has suggested he wants to bring in more experienced players in the summer.
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Palmer not blameless

Palmer’s take on the situation was arguably fair enough. After all, quite incredibly, the penalty gave him he opportunity to draw level with Erling Haaland as the Premier League’s top goal-scorer with 20 strikes in a sensational debut campaign at Stamford Bridge, albeit nine of those have been – ironically – penalties.

He told Sky Sports after the game: “Other players wanted to take it, which is understandable because it’s 4-0. But I’m the penalty-taker and I wanted to take so in the end, I took it.

“We’re trying to show that everyone wants to take responsibility, maybe it was a bit over the top with the argument and stuff but everyone wants to help. It was nothing major, we were laughing and joking about it. The gaffer has told us now.”

However, he was not above reproach in this situation, despite his manager being predisposed to side with him as designated taker. It seemed to take him a long time to decide that he actually wanted to step up, having already netted a first-half perfect hat-trick. He has shown in the past with the Sterling situation that he is willing to hand over the responsibility, so perhaps he was considering doing so again.

It was his shove on Jackson, who rushed back into the melee to try to snatch the ball, that was particularly unhelpful, and he is fortunate that that did not exacerbate the situation with his team-mate evidently in no mood to be pushed around.
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Symptomatic of deeper issues

The biggest concern for anyone associated with Chelsea is that this incident laid bare deep-rooted issues within the squad that many will have presumed were there, but probably didn’t want to face up to – a toxic combination of a young squad lacking maturity and discipline, and a manager failing to command respect behind the scenes. It also seemed that Gallagher does not have the authority to command respect as stand-in captain, with Reece James injured.

On-pitch discussions over who should take a penalty are not unusual, but this situation would never have become so heated – to the extent that players are pushing and shoving each other – under the piercing gaze of past great Blues managers Jose Mourinho or Antonio Conte.

Indeed, having been fierce in his criticism of his own players and saying he would be ‘strong’, Pochettino insisted he would not punish them despite their egregious show of indiscipline – perhaps influenced by his lack of options as the club’s injury problems rumble on.

“It’s not about punishment,” he said. “It’s about to learn. They are young guys, they behave like this. I think we cannot show that type of behaviour. That is a punishment for everyone because they all know if Palmer is on the pitch, he is the taker from the day he started to play.

“After the unbelievable game that we were playing from the beginning, to talk today about that, it’s a shame and it’s an unacceptable thing. We don’t deserve to talk about that.”

He added: “It’s like we are in a school. It’s now to show that they are wrong and now they need to learn. If they don’t learn, yes, after we will take some decisions. But now it’s about to learn, it’s to use this type of experience to go on and move on.”

The manager is right that his young team is on a steep learning curve, but moments like this – during a match that could have served as a genuine turning point as Chelsea make a late push for Europe – undermine the entire project and should not go unpunished. As Pochettino says, there can be no repeat.