Mauricio Pochettino fires dig at Gary Neville in fresh response to Chelsea 'bottlers' claim

Chelsea boss Mauricio Pochettino has fired a fresh dig at Gary Neville after the pundit labelled his side the “blue billion-pound bottlers”.

Chelsea’s 1-0 defeat to Liverpool in the Carabao Cup final on Sunday saw Manchester United legend brand the Londoners as “billion-pound bottlers”.

Pochettino has since admitted he is fed up with the club’s two-year £1billion spending spree being levelled at his players while also proposing a possible explanation for Neville’s brutal analysis.

The Chelsea boss said via the Mirror: “He is Manchester United and wanted Liverpool to lose! That was a little bit of it. I don’t need to say anything more about what he said.

“I said before you can only get hurt when you are not sure about things that are true or not. But I think he was frustrated because he was disappointed with the result.”

Pochettino added: “The problem is and it is so annoying is after eight months people always talk about, about and about, always this £1billion [figure]. I don’t know. It’s, I feel, unfair. It’s my view from here.

“Always it’s Chelsea and it always appears ‘one billion’ and you cannot fight against that idea. That is why we need to move on‌.

“When Chelsea loses it is always because of, because of, because of [spending too much]. No, the circumstances of Chelsea are the circumstances of Chelsea.‌

“When the new owners arrived with the intentions. They wanted to build something different from the past. That’s what we have to understand.

Van Dijk netted a late winner against Chelsea in the Carabao Cup final (Getty)

“I hear something, more than ever, in the media, on TV the last few days. I don’t know who was saying, that Enzo Fernandez played in a World Cup Final. Yes, but when he started the competition at the World Cup, he was on the bench.

“Then two players got injured, all the focus was on Messi and Enzo didn’t have that responsibility. But now because of this type of amount (£106 million) you are telling me, people say ‘Now you have got to win the game.'

“Because of the money, people say too much money, it is going to reduce the amount of time he has to learn and become a better player and deal with this type of pressure. For me, they have an amazing quality but they need time.”

Topics: Chelsea, Carabao Cup, Gary Neville, Mauricio Pochettino, Liverpool, Manchester United, Enzo Fernandez

Chris Byfield

Sport journalist with experience writing on football, rugby, boxing and the Olympics. I'm also a Crystal Palace fan. Please don't hold this against me.