Nicolas Jackson escapes VAR punishment and avoids huge Chelsea suspension problem

Chelsea boss Mauricio Pochettino has been handed a handy reprieve after Nicolas Jackson escaped punishment for a mistimed tackle in Tuesday’s 5-0 defeat to Arsenal.

The attacker forcefully caught the ankle of Takehiro Tomiyasu early in the first half but received no punishment from the on-field official or the VAR, despite some onlookers arguing that the 22-year-old could have in fact seen red. One of them was pundit Rio Ferdinand, who exclaimed to TNT Sports: “Wow - I’m going to need that explained to me!”

A caution would have ruled the forward out for two matches given he would have tallied double figures for bookings before the late-season cut-off point. But Jackson remains on nine yellow cards with Chelsea now beyond their 32nd Premier League game of the season.

It means that even if 13-goal Jackson is carded against Aston Villa on Saturday, he will not serve a suspension due to the club surpassing the 32nd-game deadline. The same applies for Moises Caicedo, who played the whole 90 minutes at the Emirates Stadium and also sits on nine yellow cards.

The Blues were second best all night and suffered another disappointing result having put on a good display in the 1-0 FA Cup semi-final defeat to Manchester City at the weekend. Pochettino said he felt “really bad” after full-time, musing: "When we have bad days, we are so bad. When we are good, we are capable of everything."

In his post-match press conference, the Argentine stated he thought his team “gave up” at some point, but later clarified: "It's not the character [of the players].

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“I played football and I was in some similar situations with big players. I played with Maradona, Ronaldinho, but it's true some part of the season, this type of thing can happen.

"Because also of the opponent, our energy, nothing is for you in this situation and you cannot find nothing positive during the game. This type of things happen and will happen for sure with different teams."