Chelsea boss, Thomas Tuchel, has criticised his side’s performance at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday night.
The Champions League winners reject, Eddie Nketiah, exacted revenge on his former side with a double that inspired a dramatic 4-2 win and boosted Arsenal’s bid for a top-four finish in the Premier League.
Despite goals from Timo Werner and captain Cesar Azpilicueta that twice hauled Chelsea level the Gunners pulled away in the second half and claimed an important victory, leaving Tuchel to bemoan what might have been.
Speaking in a post-match interview, an irate Tuchels’ description of the match was that of a “totally wild and open game in the first half”
‘We robbed ourselves of the chance to have six minutes maybe for the equaliser. There is nothing more to analyse. We proved in the last three matches and thought we learned our lessons from Brentford and Real Madrid but obviously not,’ the 48-year-old German coach stated.
‘Look at the penalty. It’s an unbelievable goal, from our ball possession after we had three-ball losses in 10 seconds and then we do a foul when there’s not even the slightest danger.”
A huge miss from Chelsea’s defence was Antonio Rudiger who suffered a knock before the match and has arguably been one of the side’s better players in recent matches.
In spite of strong performances from the German player, Tuchel was quick to wave aside any notion of frailties. in the defensive department with the absence of the 29-year-old stalwart.
‘We conceded seven goals with Toni against Brentford and Real Madrid so it’s not about individual players. It’s about the defensive performance as a team. You need to have the tactics right, which is doubtful if I had this right, and you need the team selection right, which is also doubtful if I had this right.”
‘Then it’s a game for the players. They get the full praise when they do it as they did in the last three matches so they have to face the reality that it’s simply impossible to win matches like this if you make this amount of mistakes of this calibre.”