“Wind up merchant” Cucurella answers awkward question about his on-field behaviour | OneFootball

Marc Cucurella was the man to step up and take Chelsea’s press conference tonight ahead of their Conference League game tomorrow night.

He had a few standard questions to answer, starting with one about his team’s poor form:

“We came from not the best position these last few weeks. But in December we looked like the best team in the league, and now it looks like we are one of the worst. We are young and in football this can happen. Generally, we are playing good football.”

There was then a question about the workload of players like Cucurella, who went all the way to the Euros final last summer and have barely stopped playing since:

“It’s tough. We don’t get too much rest. We can’t do anything about it. We just have to try and recover in the best way. It’s true we play a lot of games, but I can’t do anything about this,” he said when asked about the punishing schedule of the players.

Cucurella fields awkward question about on-field behaviour

Marc Cucurella fields an awkward question about his behaviour.

So far, so normal. But then Jacob Steinberg served him a real curve ball, asking him about his growing reputation as a “wind up merchant” who like to “get under his opponent’s skin.”

The Guardian journalist tried to spin it in a positive way, asking if that was something important the full back was doing in a young and inexperienced team. Cucurella certainly didn’t deny it:

“Yeah, well I think everyone has their role. I think I try to always do my best always, I try to help the team. Being a young squad… [is no excuse], it doesn’t matter the age. We need to show that we are ready and that we are mature in the games .This is one thing we can improve.”