Chelsea manager, Jose Mourinho offered much praise to his veterans following a 1-0 friendly win over Sydney FC at ANZ Stadium on Tuesday night but was critical of his youngsters.
“The younger boys, they didn’t cope with the competitiveness of Sydney in the last part of the match,” Mourinho said.
The Portuguese manager went on to single out highly-touted youngster Ruben Loftus-Cheek, insisting the English midfielder was lazy.
When questioned as to why he was replaced, Mourinho said: “He said it was a pain in his back. But to me, it looked like he only had that pain when Sydney had the ball.”
Chelsea took the lead in the 30th minute after dominating much of the early possession.
Frenchmen Loic Remy cut inside onto his left boot and thumped home an unbelievable strike to hand the London-based club the lead.
Sydney FC looked to hit back through Chris Naumoff only moments later but the Sutherland junior could only pick out the large frame of the onrushing Petr Cech.
Despite this, Arnold was happy with the 19-year-old’s performance, praising many of the younger players in the squad.
“Naumoff was excellent . . . Our young boys were exceptional. They’ve set their own standards for next year and shown they can do that in front of 80,000 people. Maybe I should hire a crowd,” Arnold said.
Arnold went on to praise the resolve of his side, measuring ample progress between Saturday night’s fixture against Spurs and tonight’s match.
“I think tonight we were better going forward . . . Naumoff had the one-vs-one in the first half that has been cleared off the line and I’ve just seen the Seb Ryall disallowed goal and 9/10 referees would have given that.”
That decision came in the closing stages of the match as Sydney looked to grab a late goal.
After a bit of a scramble, second half substitute Sebastian Ryall looked to have forced the ball over the line but it was called back for handball.
The match spells the end of each team’s respective seasons.
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