'Wants to score' – Chelsea player defends Madueke and Jackson in penalty incident

One Chelsea player has stuck up for his teammates Nicolas Jackson and Noni Madueke after the pair were involved in a scuffle to try and take the penalty off of Cole Palmer last night.

The Blues won 6-0 at home to Everton in The Premier League last night, and it was the Cole Palmer show once again. The rising star scored four goals, with the fourth being his penalty which sparked the highly debated and dramatic incident that slightly overshadowed a fantastic win by Chelsea in the end.

First of all, Madueke tried to take the ball and take the penalty but he was met by force from Jackson who wanted it. Thiago Silva intervened and it looked like Madueke would take it. Then Palmer, who is the confirmed penalty taker as manager Mauricio Pochettino said after the game, came to take the ball off Madueke and was met with more force by both the winger and Jackson. It was incredibly stupid and childish stuff.

But right back Malo Gusto has attempted to play it down and says that it wasn’t a problem and both players just wanted to score.

He told LondonWorld: “No, it’s okay, sometimes this can happen. We are all competitive. Nico wants to score, Noni and Cole as well — it’s normal. It’s important to stay together. That’s what we did tonight with the 6-0, we are very happy and we just want to keep pushing for the rest of the season.”

I like Gusto a lot, but this incident should never be played down, it was truly embarrassing and pretty disgusting to see really. Pochettino was hard on them after in his post-match words, and that is the kind of thing you want to hear after such an incident, not people trying to justify it or thinking it’s OK.