Pochettino urges officials to ignore the ‘hype’ of Klopp farewell

Mauricio Pochettino is worried that the referees might be influenced by all the attention on Jurgen Klopp’s departure from English football during the Carabao Cup final.

He thinks the referee in their recent 4-1 loss against Liverpool, Paul Tierney, made some bad calls. This game happened right after Klopp announced he was leaving Liverpool.

Klopp’s departure is still a big topic leading up to Sunday’s final at Wembley Stadium.

Pochettino wants the referees, led by Chris Kavanagh, to be fair, especially since this might be Klopp’s last domestic final.

“I think it’s important that we play fairly and that the referees make fair decisions,” said Pochettino. “When we played against Liverpool, it felt like every decision went against us. We didn’t get any penalties, and the 50-50 situations always seemed to favor Liverpool. I just want us to be treated fairly.”

Pochettino admits that Liverpool was better in the last game, but he’s frustrated that his team didn’t get a couple of clear penalty calls, especially when Virgil van Dijk seemed to foul Gallagher early on and when Christopher Nkunku was brought down in the box.

“They played better than us, but we should have had a penalty in the first five minutes and another one in the second half,” Pochettino explained. “The VAR was used for similar situations, so why not give us a penalty? We’re Chelsea, and we want to compete on a level playing field. If they’re better, fair enough, but we want fair decisions.”

Pochettino acknowledges that Chelsea is far behind Liverpool in the league standings, but after some good performances recently, he believes they can compete in a one-off match.

“We’ll definitely show respect to Klopp and Liverpool,” he said. “Liverpool and Klopp are fantastic, but we’ll compete just as hard. We want both teams to be seen equally. We’ve been studying our game against Liverpool, looking for ways to beat them, and we’ll try our best just like they will.”

That’s Pochettino’s take on the upcoming final.