Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel after the 2-1 defeat to Southampton at St. Mary Stadium said that the team is not tough enough to win away matches at the moment. Chelsea, despite leading first through Raheem Sterling’s goal, conceded twice before half-time, and we’re left stunned as Southampton battled hard to hold the score line of 2-1 at full time.
Chelsea have lost twice this season, just the first five games into the season, the worst start by the club for 27 years.
During the post match conference, Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel said:
‘It was the same story at Leeds. At Leeds, we thought the problem was we didn’t score in the first 25 minutes, and they pushed us unbalanced with two goals, and we couldn’t find any answers.
‘Today we scored, everything was okay, but one set-piece again, one sloppy defending, and we were unbalanced.
‘We didn’t react. We were lucky not to concede a third goal at the beginning of the second half, and we were not tough enough as a team to react.’
‘You stop it with pure mentality, defending mentality, so there is no superiority for the opponent, just toughen up as a team.
‘I don’t like to talk about it normally because you can’t prove it with data or body position, but it’s like this. Both goals are soft and shouldn’t happen if you want to win a Premier League match. You need to be tougher than that.’
‘It reminds me of Juventus last season. We played a fantastic match at Stamford Bridge, and after that, we had Chilly off for eight months and Kante for eight weeks.
‘It was the same against Tottenham this season. We had a fantastic performance and after that, our key player said goodbye for six weeks minimum, and then it’s red cards and Ruben was injured, and Reece was off with illness.
‘It’s key player after key player. But more importantly, if these key players are missing, we need to show a different mentality. It’s not enough at the moment to win at Leeds and Southampton.
‘We’re humble enough to know we can lose football matches, even if we hate it, but it’s too easy to push us off the track.
‘The line is so thin between excuses and explanations,’ added the boss. ‘I don’t want to go down this road and give any room for excuses to anybody.
‘The closing of the transfer window will help. We will know who has full commitment and what role everybody needs to play and fulfil, and everybody including myself has to step up our level of performance. It’s an okay performance, not a disaster, but okay is never good enough.’
