Jurgen Klopp defends Chelsea over Gary Neville's 'bottlejobs' comment

Jurgen Klopp says he knew Mauricio Pochettino ‘felt horrible’ (Picture: Getty)

Jurgen Klopp has leaped to the defence of Chelsea head coach Mauricio Pochettino after Gary Neville branded the Blues ‘billion-pound bottlejobs’.

Chelsea have spent over £1 billion on players since co-owner Todd Boehly took over from Roman Abramovich in May 2022.

But the west Londoners have largely struggled in the Boehly era, with Chelsea currently 11th in the Premier League after 25 games this season.

That comes after an abysmal 12th-placed finish last term and Neville aimed a dig at Chelsea after they lost the Carabao Cup final to Klopp’s Liverpool on Sunday.

Klopp, though, does not see things the same way and said: ‘I understand that people have to talk about it, but I was in the other seat as well, losing a final.

‘And people say a lot of things about you that you don’t like to hear. In my case, some of them were true, some were not true, just guessing what might have happened.

‘I’m the one who knows what it’s like to lose five or six finals in a row. I can imagine how it was for Chelsea, everybody tells you, ‘By the way, you lost the last five and that’s a new record’ – it’s not nice I really felt for them.

The Argentine was trying to land a trophy in his first season as boss (Picture: Getty)

‘They didn’t deserve to get all the blame [because] they played a really good football game, in a final where nobody plays their absolute best football.

‘You just have to beat the opponent, and that’s what we did. That’s why this ‘bottling’ thing is really not mine. I really don’t understand it.

‘They wanted it badly and didn’t get it, and I saw in the faces of the players and Poch after the game that it felt horrible.

‘I don’t think anybody deserves these kind of feelings but in finals it is like that, that one feels like that and the other one is happier. Tricky, but it is the world we are living in.’

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