Thomas Tuchel insisted that the game against Wolves should have been postponed as he says he was pleased with the second half performance.
Chelsea’s boss Thomas Tuchel said the game against Wolves in the Premier League should have been postponed due to their current predicament.
The Blues struggled against Wolves as points were shared between both teams in the game that ended in a goalless draw.
Tuchel while speaking with the club media after the game stated that they the game shouldn’t have been played as most players are out with Covid 19.
He stated that he understood that they have the required number on player available to go on with the match but stress the fact that they those players didn’t get more training session with the team.
Tuchel on his players.
“I understand when they say we still have 14 players, but if you look in detail a bit more at who the 14 players are, you see Trevoh Chalobah with two training sessions, Mateo Kovacic with one training session, N’Golo Kante with one training session. We were putting a huge risk on the players physically and because of Covid.
“I cannot and will not comment on any other decision made from other games being postponed or not postponed. We never compared ourselves to any other situation, we were just worried about the safety of players. The players were concerned about their health because we had several positive Covid tests in consecutive days.”
Tuchel further stated that he is pleased with the second half performance and that they would have won the game with a bit of luck.
“We struggled a little bit in the first half, after a very strong start in the first five minutes. We struggled to adapt to Wolves’ shape. We were a bit late in all the challenges. The reaction in the second half was very good. It was a very good performance in the second half. We have another clean sheet so a lot of positive things.
“It’s hard to create chances and score goals here, that was clear before. To analyse this game isolated and purely this performance, I am absolutely okay. We could have won it with a bit of luck, or a bit more quality, a shot more, little situations on our side, but I’m very happy how we played second half.”
The German also stated that he don’t know whether the game against Brentford on Wednesday will still go on.
“I have no idea. We had an idea yesterday evening what would happen and it didn’t, so we have no idea. We will continue to do tests on a daily basis. We will go to training.
“We as a club were very responsible. We left Kai out against Everton, when we needed him badly in that position, with a negative test because he had symptoms.
“We left Jorginho out today. It’s not even clear until now if he’s positive or negative. We were very responsible. Still there was a lot going on in the last 24 hours. Now we will sit in a bus together for three more hours and tomorrow we will train after testing.”
Hakim Ziyech and Trevoh Chalobah were withdrawn from the game but the German insists they will wait for further assessment.
“We can survive the game but at some point we will pay the price, for sure. Maybe we already have with all our midfielders. Trevoh hopefully it’s just painful. At the moment it’s very painful. We still hope it’s not serious, but we need to wait for further examination.
“Hakim I don’t think it’s bad. He got hit on the nerve on his calf, and it was tight so we had to take him off.”
Sportscliffs.com earlier reported that the Thomas Tuchel claims the team is not where they should be after their recent poor performance.
“We are in a place where you don’t want to be,” he said.
“We have had good performances – sometimes very good – but we don’t have the results for them.
“If you have bad performances and you don’t have the results, you just focus on the performance. You speak it out loud, get the details better, do whatever needs to be done to make the performance better and increase the possibility of a result.
“If you had a bad performance and you get a good result, even better because you are still in the place where you can focus on the bad performance, but you win and have that atmosphere.
“In this space where we are, it’s tricky,” he continued.
“We lost two points against Manchester United because we did a silly mistake. We were clearly the better team. I saw many teams struggle more against West Ham than we did, but we lose with a freak shot in the last minute. And I refuse to analyse the Everton match from the result.
“We are getting punished for not a lot. It’s hard to accept.”
