Arsenal beat Chelsea to lift the FA Cup trophy on Saturday, and the losing captain has revealed his disappointment at being ‘punished’ for lowering their level.
The Gunners came into the tie as underdogs, and with the added pressure of needing victory or suffer without any form of European football, and they came away with a deserved victory.
Question marks were raised over a couple of refereeing decisions, most notably Mateo Kovacic’s second yellow card which saw Chelsea finish the game with 10-men, but Azpilicueta believes that it wasn’t the officiating which cost them the result.
“A lot of times there were 50-50’s (that went Arsenal’s way) and we had the same in 2017 – but we have to look further than this,” Azpilicueta told chelseafc.com.
“We have to look at ourselves. We know two weeks ago when we played against Man United (in the semi-final), we really controlled it.
“It’s painful and a tough one to take. Obviously when you lose a final, it’s always painful.
“We started the game well and scored an early goal which normally gives a confidence to build on but we didn’t capitalise on it.
“We dropped our level a little bit and we were punished.”
Our side definitely looked like we had a grip on the game when it was 11v11 so I completely agree with the Spaniard.
Arsenal did take full advantage of the flow of the match, and were deserved winners, and there is so much to look forward to going into our first full season with Mikel Arteta in charge.
Do Chelsea have any real reason to have felt hard done-by?
Patrick
Chelsea’s captain is magnanimous in defeat. Looking forward to next season because Bayern Munich will compound their woes
Of course they feel hard done by…..they lost!!!!
Following their celebrations in Baku, reality does bite one in the bum sometimes – we outplayed them for 75% of the game and London is RED AND WHITE.
Let’s just leave it at red so spuds fans don’t get any ideas. London is Red
Azpilicueta has always been a good professional player so he wont say we won because of refs or luck unlike some others might have said.
Captain and manager both very gracious in defeat. Not sure if we can all say the same after some of the whinging this season about reffing calls going against us. Mount’s yellow and Kovacic’s sending off were poor calls (although Kovacic showed very poor judgement that we would crucify Xhaka or Luiz for). Those, combined with Pulisic’s hammy going, shows the football gods were smiling on us yesterday. No shame admitting it and we would have still been in with a good shout if none of those things happened.
👍 The facts speak for themselves. Lampard and Azpilicueta have just displayed the disappointment of perennial winners in having lost, but the class to accept defeat, acknowledging what they know they can’t change.
On the dot. That’s how to loose honorably. The noise makers blaming their loss to the referee should take some tutorials from Azpil.