Ibrahimovic scorns Chelsea ‘babies’ over red card reaction
LONDON: Chelsea were accused of being “babies” and labelled “pathetic” after their Champions League exit at the hands of Paris Saint-Germain.
Former Liverpool player and manager Graeme Souness, now working as a pundit on Sky Sports, described Chelsea’s approach in their Champions League exit to Paris St Germain as “pathetic”.
PSG striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who was sent off during the first half of last night’s match by referee Bjorn Kuipers for a clumsy challenge on Oscar, compared the Chelsea players with babies.
He said: “I don’t know if I have to get angry or start to laugh. For me, when I saw the red card I was like ‘the guy doesn’t know what he’s doing’.
“That is not the worst. The worst is when I got the red card all the Chelsea players come around. It felt like I had a lot of babies around me.”
Ibrahimovic also suggested Oscar feigned injury, adding: “I pulled out [of the tackle], because I saw him come in the tackle. I don’t know if he was acting afterwards. Doesn’t matter. We won the game, we went through and let’s see what happens.”
Souness praised the effort of the French club, who played for more than an hour with 10 men after Ibrahimovic’s dismissal.
He said: “This PSG team is just full of technique, a really good footballing team and they had to put up with stuff which I find really, really unappealing.
“The reaction of the Chelsea players on the challenge on Oscar epitomised what I’m saying. To a man they surrounded the referee, (Diego) Costa ran 50 yards to get involved.
“That is something we can do without, that is not the British way of doing things, it’s creeping into our game, which is, I find, totally unacceptable.
“When you played, the last thing you wanted to show was that you were injured. Today is the exact opposite of that, someone brushes you, you want to go down and try and get them in trouble. That’s how pathetic it is.
“We saw a bit of that in the first half and thank goodness the PSG team stood up to that and they leave here with credit. They’re a proper team.”
WORLD SOCCER
WorldSoccer.com
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