Chelsea suffered at the Emirates Stadium on Tuesday evening, as Arsenal inflicted our biggest defeat of the season.

Despite us having chances to equalise in the first half and going in for the break only one goal behind, the Gunners flew out of the blocks to get another shortly into the second half, and by the full-time whistle it was 5-0.

Understandably, Mauricio Pochettino was not pleased after the game, and chose to highlight the start of each half as the key area where the game was lost.

'I feel disappointed, really bad,' said Pochettino. 'The performance wasn’t good, we didn’t start the game in the way we were supposed to start.

'We conceded the goal too easy, we made things so easy for Arsenal, started the game losing the game and after that it was really tough. 10 or 15 minutes after we conceded, we started to play a little bit and create some chances, like we started the game again.

'We were talking at half-time, saying it is not possible to start a game like that at this level, but we started in a bad way again in the second half and conceded two goals. Then I think the team gave up and we were not in the game.

'The most difficult thing to accept is the way we started, because the last 30 minutes of the first half we competed well and the game was even and we started to force them to make some mistakes to create some chances.

'Then in the second half, the way we started when it went 3-0. I think in this moment the team started to suffer a lot and struggled to manage the game.'

Pochettino felt the turnaround from our FA Cup semi-final performance to this was typical of the team's inconsistency this season...

'It’s difficult because we are talking after nearly one season in the same way, but it’s impossible to see Saturday at Wembey a fantastic performance, competing really well against one of the best teams in the world like Manchester City, and then today.

'You can lose games against a team like Arsenal that is fighting for the Premier League, but it is the way we compete, three days ago and then today. We needed to make changes to the starting line-up for different reasons, but that is the inconsistency we have been showing all season.

'Three days ago it was a fantastic game, great performance and we deserved to go to the final. Today you can use any words to describe our performance, it wasn’t good.'

Mauricio was also reluctant to single out individuals for criticism, believing it is as a collective where we have problems...

'It’s true we did not compete. I cannot blame the players, as a team we are showing this inconsistency. That is why we are where we are, because we are capable of having an amazing performance, and three days later to be at the other extreme.

'When we have bad days, we are so bad. When we are good, we are capable of everything. But it’s another thing that we need to be aware that we need to improve for the future.

'We cannot blame the players, I’m not going to blame the players. The circumstances are bigger than the performance of the players. We cannot blame young guys who came here and after suffering some circumstances, come here to fight against a team preparing to win the Premier League.

'We cannot be unfair with our players. It is true we are disappointed with our performance, but I am not going to say something which is unfair to describe our team, our players, our squad.'