Mauricio Pochettino insists captain Conor Gallagher did not deserve to be sent off as he praises his players after battling win… with Brighton boss Roberto de Zerbi left ruing conceding ‘three stupid goals’

Mauricio Pochettino praised the character of his 10-man Chelsea team for battling to a first league win at Stamford Bridge since August.

The Blues led Brighton 2-1 when their captain Conor Gallagher was shown a second yellow card in the 45th minute.

But Chelsea, who had not won a home game in the league since beating Luton, did not crumble as they withstood a late onslaught of Brighton pressure.

Pochettino did not believe Gallagher deserved a second booking but said his side ‘needed’ the challenge of seeing out a win with a man less.

‘For me it wasn’t a second yellow card but this is my opinion, maybe I am wrong,’ Pochettino said.

‘After Newcastle where we didn’t show our real face, we wanted to play well, we wanted to be aggressive and we wanted to show that we care and we wanted to win the game.

‘I think the team was very good. I feel very proud because after Newcastle it was tough. A team like Brighton is difficult to play [against].

‘Second half, until the end I think we didn’t concede too much and the team scored another goal with one less.

‘In the position that we are now, it is not easy for the players to play. That is what it is to build the momentum step by step, that is why I am so proud of all the players and the character that they showed. 

‘I told them at half-time “okay, it’s 2-1 for us but I am happy that it happened because it’s a great opportunity for us.” It was a massive challenge of “come on, now we need to show we are a team.”

‘We needed this type of game to challenge us. We needed to be a team and behave like a team. It will improve us.’

Enzo Fernandez scored a brace of goals to help Chelsea claim a 3-2 win against Brighton

But just before the break Chelsea captain Connor Gallagher was sent off with a second yellow

Roberto de Zerbi refused to be drawn on the refereeing decisions that went against his side, with Chelsea awarded a second half penalty after a VAR review before Brighton had one overturned at the death. 

The Seagulls boss instead lamented his side’s poor defending.

‘We concede three goals, three stupid goals,’ De Zerbi said.

‘The first [was] incredible. We can be very young but we could defend better and we could play with more attention in that situation because we could find the goal in the second half a lot of situations before we conceded the third goal. But if we make this type of mistake you lose the game.’