Chelsea manager Mauricio Pochettino has praised Leeds United after his side’s narrow 3-2 win in the FA Cup.
A much-changed Leeds side ran their Premier League opponents all the way at Stamford Bridge, and but for Conor Gallagher’s 90th minute winner, would’ve deservedly taken the game into extra-time.
Mateo Joseph scored his first two goals for Leeds on the night either side of strikes from Nicolas Jackson and Mykhaylo Mudryk, before Gallagher finished the game off, arguably against the run of play.
Gallagher himself was also full of praise for Leeds in his post-match interview, and Daniel Farke’s side can certainly take credit from how they performed against an expensively assembled Chelsea side.
Speaking in his pre-match press conference, Pochettino believes Leeds looked like a side ‘full of confidence’ and made it extremely ‘tough’ for his side to play well.
Pochettino praises Leeds performance
He said: “I think we needed this result. It wasn’t a great performance. It’s a team that is full of confidence, very, very, very strong team. They are doing fantastic in the Championship. It was tough for us.
“When you concede after a few minutes. But the character we showed after this situation, it’s a thing to learn for the team. We are so happy in the end, we avoided extra-time and are in the quarter-final.”
Leeds can certainly take confidence from their performance last night and they should not in anyway feel disheartened with a nine-match winning run in the Championship still to preserve.
Farke was without some key players in Georginio Rutter and Ilia Gruev, while the likes of Crysencio Summerville, Glen Kamara and Willy Gnonto were also on the bench.
It is good to see Chelsea being complementary of how Leeds performed on the night and it should bode well for if promotion is achieved in May.
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