Chelsea manager Graham Potter refused to be drawn on whether James Tarkowski should have been red carded for an off-the-ball incident with Joao Felix but praised Everton for making things difficult for his side in their 2-2 draw.
The visitors came from behind twice to earn a share of the spoils at Stamford Bridge thanks to an Abdoulaye Doucoure header and late strike from substitute Ellis Simms. Speaking about the clash between Tarkowski and Felix – which opposition manager Sean Dyche failed to recall – Potter acknowledged he hadn’t seen it at the time but had watched it back on a replay.
He said: “It’s the Premier League, there’s going to be physicality, you expect that, it’s up to the referees to see all the incidents. We’re happy with Joao and happy with how he effected the game and he’s adapting and learning all the time so it’s positive for us.”
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Asked if it was a sending off offence, Potter added: “I’m not sure, I’m not a referee.”
The former Swansea City and Brighton & Hove Albion boss credited Everton for their performance but admitted he was frustrated not to have won the game. He said: “We’re really disappointed because we’ve dropped two points at home, we wanted to win, I think you saw the intention of the team, there were a lot of positive things in the performance. But ultimately we haven’t defended well enough and to concede two goals means it’s not so easy to win the game so that’s the disappointing thing for us.
“I think you have to credit Everton, they do what they do well. They use their physicality, they use their set-pieces, they ask you a question but I think most of the game we controlled fairly well, as much as you can at this level, but ultimately the first goal is really disappointing from a set-piece perspective and we spoke about that before the game.
“Then for the second goal, we haven’t attacked well enough and exposed ourselves to a big space to defend and haven’t done it well enough. These little small things, when you look at how much we put into the game and how much we tried to attack, to be cheap with the goals we conceded is frustrating.”
Potter added: “Results-wise it’s a step back because we wanted to win but performance-wise, I think it’s a step forward because there was a lot good in the game. I thought we attacked well, Joao (Felix), Kai (Havertz) and CP (Christian Pulisic) were positive in the first pass certainly; Reece (James) and Chili (Ben Chilwell) used with the width well and Enzo I thought was creative in midfield and Wesley (Fofana) drove the game well, so lots of individual performances were positive, but the feeling is frustration because we’ve dropped points.”
The 47-year-old insisted that his team hadn’t deliberately eased off but acknowledged they had not defended well enough to expect to pick up the three points. Potter said: “The boys are disappointed, I’d like to keep the conversation private but the boys were frustrated because they’d put a lot into the game and the intention was there. Performance-wise it was quite a strong performance from us but ultimately we’re really frustrated because we can’t concede the goals we did and expect to win games.
“It wasn’t conscious (easing off), I think Everton used their strengths well, they’ve got physicality, they use (Abdoulaye) Doucoure and (Amadou) Onana, long balls and second balls, throw-ins and set-pieces to create pressure, create danger, Sean (Dyche) has always done that well so it’s not always easy to control it as much as you’d like. We lost a bit of control for a short period of time and when we did, we conceded, and that’s the frustrating bit.”
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