The Danish international has become an important player under Tuchel, as Chelsea continue to build on their positive start to the season.
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Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel has revealed that he is planning to rotate his team ahead of the Carabao Cup tie against Southampton. The manager spoke about the importance of giving minutes to some players, as the Blues prepare for the midweek cup match. Chelsea host the Saints at Stamford Bridge in the fourth round and head into the game with a 100 per cent record for October, following a run of four successive wins. It began with a win over the same opponents in the Premier League and has seen the club score an impressive 15 goals in the last four games while conceding only once. With the next match being the team’s third in the space of seven days, Tuchel might have no choice but to make changes to his line-up.
“There will be some changes, how much I don’t know yet,” Tuchel was quoted as saying by the club’s website. “Sometimes you can never be fully sure, do you interrupt a good flow, is it better to keep everybody in there and playing to keep the momentum going or is it the moment to give some players a rest?
“But we have an excellent department at Cobham that helps us take these decisions – the guys who do the analysing, the guys who do the monitoring, the guys who treat the players, the medical department and everybody. We will put our heads together and get some decisions because we have to admit, we had a late game on Wednesday and an early game on Saturday and another one on Tuesday. So it’s very likely that we have some changes.”
Andreas Christensen, who scored his first Chelsea goal in the 4-0 Champions League win over Malmo last week, could return to the side against the Saints. He was not involved against Norwich at the weekend. Speaking about Christensen, Tuchel said, “I think it’s important that we accept the personality of every player. Some are more aggressive, some are more loud, some are more calm and he is a very calm guy, a very intelligent player.”
“Sometimes you can get maybe a bit misled by judging him from his personality because he’s a hard defender and he’s the guy who is not shy to have hard tackles and to win challenges and to step up in games. He found his place, he’s very strong, he’s very reliable and he has not reached his limits because at this age there is still room to improve.
“So he can be an absolutely top defender for us in the next years and hopefully he will be because he comes from the Academy, he knows what it takes, and he has improved massively so far. But it’s not done yet. You have to show it over and over again. There are big examples at this club of what it takes to be a legend in defence and there is still a way to go but we are very happy so far.”
