Antonio Conte felt Chelsea were unlucky to miss out on the Carabao Cup final.
Arsenal came from behind to beat them 2-1 in the semi-final second leg at the Emirates Stadium, scoring two fortuitous goals after Eden Hazard had given the visitors an early lead.
The Gunners equalised when Nacho Monreal’s header ricocheted in off both Marcos Alonso and Antonio Rudiger.
And a deflection off Rudiger teed up Granit Xhaka to score Arsenal’s winner in the second half.
“We had great desire and great will to play at Wembley,” said Blues boss Conte.
“We started the game very well, we scored, and then we conceded a strange goal with a deflection and for sure we conceded two strange goals and were unlucky.
“They were a bit lucky in these two situations but we have to praise this Arsenal team.”
Conte also described an injury to Willian as “decisive”.
The Brazilian limped off with a hamstring problem in the first half and was replaced by recent signing Ross Barkley, who came on for his debut.
Meanwhile, Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger insisted his side fully deserved to win and that their switch to back three was the decisive factor.
This post was last modified on 25/01/2018
View Comments
There were two other shots deflected that had chances to find the net.- but didn't.
Xhaka's set piece off of Hazard that barely cleared the bar, and Ozil's shot across goal that deflected off of Christiansen. Both barely missed.
Then there was the breaking and alone Alex Iwobi deftly targeting Caballero's foot on an otherwise open goal.
So, Conte can bemoan 2 'unlucky' goals if he wishes.
But had Chelsea been 'truly unlucky'?
The final tally could have been 5-1.
jw1
Lampard scored 147 goals for Chelski and I'd be surprised if fewer than 120 were deflections. It's called karma Antonio. Btw Xhaka's goal wasn't a deflection in case you didn't notice.