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Mauricio Pochettino has admitted that the reason he substituted Levi Colwill at the break during Chelsea’s 4-1 win against Tottenham on Monday night was to avoid the centre-back getting a second yellow card.
The Blues took all three points against a poorly disciplined Spurs side, who were forced to finish the game with nine men after picking up two red cards on either side of halftime.
Cristian Romero was sent off for a reckless challenge on Enzo Fernandez inside his own 18-yard area, with Cole Palmer stepping up to successfully dispatch the resulting penalty.
The goal pulled Chelsea level, after they went down to Dejan Kulusevski’s deflected strike in the 6th minute, and from there, things just got easier for the visitors, who came out stronger in the second half, and forced Tottenham to concede another red card through Destiny Udogie, before scoring three more goals to seal the important win.
Colwill was replaced with Marc Cucurella at the break after getting booked by centre referee, Michael Oliver for exhibiting violent behaviour during an exchange with Pape Matar Sarr, and according to Pochettino, the decision was taken to avoid Chelsea getting a red like their opponents.
“Yes, because I think after the yellow card he lose a little bit his focus and it is too much risk,” Poch said when asked about the decision to replace Colwill.
“Marc [Cucurella] is doing well also so I thought not to take a risk.
“We wanted to avoid the problem for different things, to get another yellow card was going to be a risk for us.”