Chelsea boss Liam Rosenior expressed frustration after his side squandered a 2-0 lead in a 2-2 draw against Leeds United at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday night.
Despite dominating large periods of the match, the Blues were undone by two quick-fire goals from Lukas Nmecha and Noah Okafor, leaving Rosenior frustrated by lapses in concentration at key moments.
“Two key moments in the game that we didn’t take care of, when we didn’t stay calm, cost us,” Rosenior said. “Moi Caicedo’s a magnificent player, he’s been top for me, but he makes a poor decision. How the play gets there, we made a few poor decisions in terms of how we press in that moment and we give away a penalty.
“The penalty goes in, they hit a few long balls, their energy is up, they pick up a few second balls. The player handballs it, it affects my players in that moment—they think it’s a handball and switch off and don’t clear the ball, they score.”
Rosenior admitted the five-minute spell in which Leeds scored their comeback goals overshadowed an otherwise dominant performance.
“The ridiculous thing for us is that they’ve managed to score two goals in a five-minute period, when for the other 90 minutes of the game we were by far the better team. We just made poor decisions in key moments,” he said.
He stressed that Chelsea’s potential remains high if his side can maintain focus throughout matches.
“If we can just focus and concentrate for 90 minutes, this team has unbelievable potential, which you saw for probably 90 per cent of the game today. I feel like I already know what I want to work on to improve that, it’s just making sure we get the time to do it,” Rosenior added.
The Chelsea manager also confirmed a concern over fullback Marc Cucurella, who was forced off at halftime with a hamstring issue.
“Unfortunately at half-time he felt his hamstring. It wasn’t a tactical change, it was one that was enforced. Cucu’s been top and hopefully he’ll be okay. We’ll scan him and make sure we find out if he’s available for the next game,” he said.
