Chelsea news: No reason for the Blues to have December dip, says Thomas Tuchel

Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel will hope that his players will overcome the recent drop in levels with a win over Leeds at Stamford Bridge. On the back of a fantastic start, the Blues have struggled a bit in the recent matches. Tuchel saw his Chelsea players surrender winning positions in the previous two games against West Ham United in the Premier League and Zenit St Petersburg in the midweek Champions League clash. He lamented the fact that his side was “out-worked and outrun” in Zenit. The Blues twice surrendered the lead in Russia, settling for a 3-3 draw in the end.

“We are talking about work, we talking about speed, we are talking about physical input,” he lists, according to their club’s website. He further admitted that the shortfall may not be helped by the ongoing injury absences of N’Golo Kante, Ben Chilwell and Mateo Kovacic. “It is very difficult to come to this kind of level where we have pushed ourselves, it’s maybe even harder to stay there,” Tuchel points out.

“It is now the next step for all of us to stay on this level, to be relentless, and to not try to escape with 95 per cent or 90 per cent. The very unusual thing is that when we had the lead and we gave matches away, we were not outclassed. We were out-worked and outrun in Zenit and this was surprising and very, very unusual.”

Tuchel: We dig in, we take it on

Tuchel was asked to consider a suggestion that dips in form and results in the middle of winter is reportedly a recurring Chelsea theme in recent years. “That would be worrying if it is like this, and then it’s my job to stop it and to point the finger and find the right methods, words or actions to stop it, because there’s no reason for it,” he stated.

“If there is a statistic it would even raise my hunger to go against it. Even if it was like this in the last three winters, it’s not written that this has to be something or it’s from heaven above. If it was we can stop training and stop doing all our meetings because we just go out and wait to see what’s the plan from above for this game! Instead we dig in, we take it on and do not let the players or ourselves escape with excuses.

“We have to be careful we don’t make things bigger than they are. We played a draw against Man United at home, we had a one really average performance in Watford but we won it and had a good performance over most minutes of the match against West Ham and we lost it. This can happen but we are pushing for very good performances all the time.”

‘There are no surprises in front of the camera’

Tuchel also revealed that whatever he has spoken in the press conferences are the ones that he has already conveyed to the players in the dressing room. “I don’t want to look away, I don’t want to make it too big and too general at the moment. Hopefully we can end the discussions with normal performances and the results from before,” he added.

“What I say on the microphone, you can be sure that I said it before in the locker room because I don’t give messages [to the players] over the microphone and camera. I give them straightaway and I give them to the whole team. There are no surprises in front of the camera or in press conferences. When everybody wants the players to be on the top level all the time it is stressful, it is fatiguing. It is not always very pleasant but that’s the reality.”