Chelsea started their Carabao Cup semi-final campaign on a bad note after losing 1-0 to Middlesbrough away from home.
Chelsea’s best may still be enough to rescue the game and book a place in February’s final at Wembley but the fans were very angry at full-time.
Some of the Chelsea fans who travelled to Riverside Stadium voiced their anger at the final whistle and some of the players who went to talk to them got their hands full.
Although Chelsea had 11 of their key players unavailable, Middlesbrough had 12 sidelined and lost two more to injury in the opening 20 minutes as both Emmanuel Latte Lath and Alex Bangura limped off.
But Hackney’s goal in the 37th minute was one of only two shots on target Middlesbrough had during the match.
“We made some mistakes and we were punished for that, in football that happens,” said Pochettino.
“We have to be pushing. If you assess the performance, then overall we were the better side, we created more chances and had clear chances. But, we didn’t score.
“That has happened this season and there have been a lot of games we have not won because we were not clinical enough. We have a lack of goals, but not creating chances. We are creating many chances but not scoring them and if you don’t score then it is difficult to win.”
Palmer wasted two glorious chances in the game. He was gifted a golden chance to give Chelsea a 31st-minute lead but he fired wide.
Palmer wasted an even better chance in first-half stoppage time, turning a rebound over from four yards after Glover had failed to catch a tame Enzo Fernández shot.
Despite registering 81% possession in the second half, Chelsea managed just five shots on target across the 90 minutes.
