Merson slams Rosenior decision as Chelsea star ‘wasted’ with Arsenal man Gyokeres ‘struggling’ | OneFootball

Pundit Paul Merson has hit out at Chelsea head coach Liam Rosenior as his decisions contributed to his side going out of the Carabao Cup “with a whimper”.

Chelsea trailed Arsenal 3-2 on aggregate heading into Tuesday night’s Carabao Cup semi-final second leg at the Emirates.

This meant the Blues were definitely in the game and had a decent chance of progressing, but they produced a poor performance as they struggled to threaten Arsenal.

The Gunners had no trouble keeping their rivals at bay until they struck on the counter-attack in stoppage time, with Kai Havertz’s late goal sealing a 4-2 aggregate victory and their place in the Carabao Cup final.

After the match, Merson mocked Chelsea star Wesley Fofana for “crying” as he was “flabbergasted” at Rosenior’s side.

“I’m numb, I’m flabbergasted. I can’t believe what I’ve just watched,” Merson told Sky Sports shortly after the full-time whistle.

“This is Chelsea Football Club, they’ve got international football players, they’ve got a World Cup winner, this isn’t a bottom-five team. He [Wesley Fofana] is crying, he should be crying because they never had a go.

“I’m lost for words, I can’t believe they never had a go. They’ve gone out with a whimper in a semi-final. It hasn’t worked. Go out in a blaze of glory, don’t go out like that.”

Merson also explained why he thinks Rosenior “wasted” Enzo Fernandez with Viktor Gyokeres “struggling” for Arsenal.

“The midfield three [of Arsenal] weren’t great but they played against a very good midfield three in [Moises] Caicedo and [Andrey] Santos… I thought Enzo was wasted out on the left in the first half, playing on the left against one of Arsenal’s better defenders in [Jurrien] Timber,” Merson added.

“You look back now, I just think [Viktor] Gyokeres up front is struggling, just play two centre-halves, the two full-backs are very good in Gusto and Cucurella, they can look after the two wingers, they are good defenders one versus one, that gives you an extra forward to get on the pitch and they didn’t, they went with another defender and I don’t think they needed to.

“And if you want to play Estevao as your right-hand side for 45 minutes then play [Cole] Palmer the other 45 minutes, but you’re getting a player on, they’re just wasting time.

“I wouldn’t mind if it was [Erling] Haaland up front, it’s Gyokeres, it’s no disrespect to him, but if you’ve got two centre-halves who can’t look after him then you start to worry.

“I’d love to talk to the Arsenal players and ask, ‘are you shocked what happened tonight, did you think Chelsea would come and have a right go?’. Liam is talking like he come into Chelsea like they were fifth bottom in the league, they weren’t fifth bottom, they were still flying along, he’s talking about improvement, Chelsea fans won’t be happy with that, I’m sorry.”