Chelsea versus Middlesbrough: Coach Michael Carrick’s emotional post-match statement

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Middlesbrough’s gaffer Michael Carrick was emotional while sharing his post-match thoughts with mfc.co.uk following Boro’s 6-1 loss to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.

The few days of celebration the Boros had after beating Chelsea by one goal at Riverside was closed with an emphatic defeat at West London yesterday.

Now the club is knocked out of the Carabao Cup campaign, with Chelsea now preparing for the final.

Carrick who received the head coach position at the club in 2022 said at the end of the match that he was disappointed and also felt for his boys.

There were several optimistic things said by fans of Middlesbrough ahead of the match. Pukka Pies, an associate of the Boros, even promised to share free Pukka pies with some Boro fans of who join the bus to Stamford Bridge. It is clear that many were very disappointed by the final result.

What troubled Carrick was not only that his team would not be in the FA Cup finals; he called the 6-1 defeat ‘brutal’.

However, the Blues’ coach, Mauricio Pochettino, had only optimistic things to say.

‘The results are good, we are improving since the beginning of the season. In all the circumstances we need to be happy because we are competing with a lot of things going on again and to reach the final was the first objective from the beginning.

‘We need to congratulate the players because they were amazing. We are improving because we are believing, we never give up, don’t listen too much to what people say when we don’t win or don’t score goals, like what happened after the first leg against Middlesbrough.

‘The most important thing is keeping the focus, seeing reality in the way we need to see the reality and see the difference between what is Chelsea and what is the team we are building.

‘They are two different things. Our challenge is the history of Chelsea, the capacity to win titles, and build a team that can match the mentality of this club.

‘What has been happening since the beginning of the season, even when we have the full squad fit, it is difficult to win. When you have 11 or 12 players always out, it is not easy to compete from one day to another and try to win.

‘Now on Friday we play in the FA Cup against a Premier League team in Aston Villa and we need to recover the players. Tomorrow we are going to be back on the training ground trying to build for the game on Friday.’

Pochettino added that the latest result was a milestone his team were looking to reach.

‘In some points it’s an amazing achievement because it was an objective when we started, because we are not in Europe. To build a team from nearly zero, it was an objective to be at Wembley in February.’

Middlesbrough put up a good fight during the game at Stamford Bridge, but Chelsea seemed better.