Chelsea boss Mauricio Pochettino urged calm after their Carabao Cup semifinal defeat at Middlesbrough.
Boro won the first-leg 1-0 thanks to Hayden Hackney’s goal.
Pochettino said: “Today the pressure was good and intensity, we cannot say anything. We made some mistakes in the first half, we gave them chances to scores and then they were so aggressive and tough. They play in the transition with the counter-attack and in a block really deep and it was difficult for us to break down. We had too many chances to score when we didn’t score, that is football. We are disappointed but it is the first half of the tie. We need to be positive.
“It is how we compete. We made some mistakes and we were punished for that, in football that happens. We have to be pushing. If you assess the performance, then overall we were the better side, we created more chances and had the clear chances. But, we didn’t score. That has happened this season and there has been a lot of games we have not won because we were not clinical enough. We have a lack of goals, but not creating chances. We are creating many chances but not scoring them and if you don’t score then it is difficult to win.”
On what he expects in the second leg, the manager added: “We are going to expect a similar game to today. We’ve got 90 minutes to play and we’ll try and score goals and win the games. And if not, it’ll be our mistake.”
