Chelsea will face Spurs for the third time in January after beating them twice in the two legs of the Carabao Cup semi-final.
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Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel wants his players to be in the right frame of mind going into Sunday’s match against Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League. Tuchel will hope that his squad will be somewhat refreshed going into this match after giving them two days off this week to get themselves in the best possible shape. In the last Premier League match, Chelsea FC had to settle for a disappointing 1-1 draw at Brighton on Tuesday evening. Tuchel is understandably disappointed by the result but does not want to make a big deal out of it.
“It was just for one match, which was in Brighton,” said Tuchel, as per their club’s website. “Not for a couple of matches because we had a couple of good matches before and good results also. Even if we did not have the result, the match was good and the mindset and the attitude was always on the level where it needs to be. But after the loss against Manchester City and the gap opened up enormously for us and playing two days later more or less, on a Tuesday again, I could see and feel from myself and from the team that some emotions took over.”
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“Maybe it was frustration, maybe it was disappointment, but it was hard for us on this particular day to reach our top level as a team, whatever the top level means on this particular day because we did not expect in general that we would play an overwhelming exciting match, because there was a very strong opponent who has a certain style of play and makes you underperform some times. But this was the very first time, so when it happens for the first time you should not make a bigger deal out of it than it is. We had our two days off now and two days to prepare to be ready on Sunday.”
Chelsea will next host Tottenham at Stamford Bridge this weekend. They will face them for the third time in January after beating them twice in the two legs of the Carabao Cup semi-final. “It’s a big game,” he added. “Of course we can do our mathematics and it’s strange to look at the fixtures and see teams competing for the same area of the table and having four games less. So this can lead you to a wrong impression that you are comfortably ahead, which you are not. So we have to make sure that this stays like this and the best chance is to win against direct opponents.
“It’s a London derby, it’s a big rivalry. We know this and we play them now three times, it’s the third time in a very short period of time, so I think they know what we do, we know what they do and things are clear. We managed to beat them twice and we will do everything to beat them a third time.”
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