Thomas Tuchel opens up about Chelsea loosing pre season match; Blames poor performance.
Chelsea played against Charlotte in their second pre-season match of the summer over night.
The kick off was shortly into Thursday morning, and I am sure many Blues fans from the UK and surrounding areas would have stayed up to watch this one, and I am also sure that some of them will be heavily regretting that decision now. Not only due to the fact many will probably have to get up early for work this morning, but also because the Chelsea performance itself was pretty poor.
The game ended 1-1, and Chelsea lost on penalties. But it was the same old story for Thomas Tuchel’s side again, lack of creativity and finesse in the final third, something that is becoming like groundhog day in this team.
Of course, it’s just a pre-season friendly, so everything should be taken with a pinch of salt, but the boss himself certainly wasn’t pulling any punches in his post-match interview, as reported by Football London.
“If we keep on struggling to feel these things and finish these things off, it will not be the first time we get punished,” Tuchel said. “If you keep an opponent alive, belief alive, the stadium alive, anything can happen. That’s why we love the game. So this is on us. I had the feeling they played with more courage, man on man in the second half, and we struggled to escape because we didn’t move enough.
“Our ball possession was not precise enough, our movement with the ball was not balanced enough to escape the pressure, so it was a pretty even game in the second half and not what we wanted.
“I would say we played a good first half but unfortunately, only 80 metres of the pitch. The last 20 metres of the pitch were not good enough, even in the first half. We found a lot of spaces to accelerate and penetrate the box but we struggled with our decision-making and precision in the last 20 metres.
“This was simply not good enough for the effort and quality we showed in the first 80 metres of the pitch and the amount of space we had, and the number of attacks we created, there were not enough clear chances and deliveries in the last 20 metres.
“We also have to say we allowed two big chances out of nothing in the first half, otherwise I think we played a very good match in all the other aspects.
“Second half, it took us half an hour to show some quality and then it was maybe for ten minutes, so it was not good at all. Not offensively, not structure-wise, not in effort, hunger to be the dominant team. It was not good enough.”