An awful night at Stamford Bridge with Chelsea suffering a 4-2 defeat to Arsenal. Arsenal had lost their previous 3 matches against Southampton, Palace and Brighton yet many of us knew that even with this form, Chelsea rolling over and conceding defeat could be possible and that is exactly what happened.
Thomas Tuchel, my reaction :
I love Thomas Tuchel, I think he is the man to build around for the next 5, 10 seasons, but I do not think that fans truly think the same way I do. On the way out from the game many people were blaming Tuchel more than the individual performances, remember that tonight specifically mistakes cost us and they have throughout this season. I went into Twitter where my main platform is based and I saw the same thing but even worse, calls for Tuchel to go, claims that he finds excuses and claims that Arteta is doing better with a worse squad, yet hours before the game, everyone was behind Tuchel.
One of my main gripes was a section of 10-15 fans saying “ Shut up “ at a couple of of fans singing “ We’ve got super Tommy Tuchel “ on the way out from the game which made me smile but the question popped into my head to the fans that reacted with “ Shut up “ is it only acceptable to sing that when we we’ve won or enjoying good times? Do you really believe in Tuchel?
It goes to show how reactionary social media is, I used to be the same but I have learnt over the last few months that results like this happen every season and sometimes more than once. It’s not nice, it’s humiliating, and a lot is down to our squad being more overrated than others seem to believe, but I have more faith in Tuchel to see out the season on a high than I did for previous managers, that’s a genuine opinion.
I have to question if certain fans really do have that loyalty behind the manager as they show when things are going right because as soon as we hit a dip or get humiliated, it seems that true feelings come out. Chelsea and their fans have high expectations, I get that, but if you have watched Chelsea since Tuchel has taken over, then there’s plenty to be optimistic about in the future. Of course right now the defence seems to be a huge issue with space becoming a regular occurrence in midfield and out wide on transitions, these are things that I trust Tuchel to sort, I’m not sure others do.
Chelsea fans are used to the mentality of hire and fire but they need to wake up and realise we will never have long term stability which is what this club desperately needs, until they back 1 manager and I personally believe with new owners taking over, the time has come to build a squad over a number of transfer Windows to compete consistently at the highest level with City and Liverpool. Cups will come naturally with Chelsea, but the league is a different story and a lot needs to happen within the next Windows for the club to add another premier league to the cabinet.
Short term success had an argument for being GOOD because we consistently saw the club win trophies but it’s draining chopping and changing managers and not being able to build an emotional connection with a manager because of this underlying mentality fans and the current owner had of fire as soon as the squad started to underperform.
On a negative note, it was disappointment to see Tuchel blame the pitch for Christensen’s mistake, but then again, Tuchel will go to extreme lengths to back his players, which will mean he would unlikely fall out with the dressing room and face another capitulation within the squad. It is not uncommon for Chelsea’s players to down tools and seek another manager to feed their own ego’s, even after huge success.
We’ve won everything, it’s time to back Tuchel for several seasons and go through the checklist of trophies again because he can do it, 6 finals in his first year and and a half at Chelsea is ridiculously impressive and the off the field issues he has dealt with incredibly with the media shows to me a complete manager and one that I would never go against.
Can you really blame Tuchel for the line-up?
In my opinion the line up was correctly rotated upfront due to Kai Havertz suffering overload and Antonio Rudiger was out of the squad after suffering with a groin injury, something that I have been saying would inevitably happen after playing so many games in a row.
Malang Sarr started, he has shown some good glimpses but overall isn’t Chelsea standard, he is rash and sloppy, and is often caught out of position, there’s also questions over his ball progression ability under pressure. Chelsea fans were unhappy that Chalobah did not play, however he had also suffered a period of bad matches and people told me constantly “ Why is he still playing? “ so what does Tuchel do? It feels like he is blamed no matter what he does.
In my opinion, fans need to let the manager do his job. Tuchel admitted he got the tactics and selection wrong which is very honest of him but on the face of it, the team selection wasn’t exactly that surprising or horrible.
Perhaps if Thomas Tuchel was given signings in multiple areas of the pitch namely CB and RWB, we wouldn’t be having to witness an ageing Cesar Azpilicueta or Malang Sarr start in premier league matches.
Tuchel trusts all of his squad and I like that but he needed better investment from the board last summer. It makes it hard for him to lose a dressing room trusting every member of the squad to start matches in a blips notice and I believe that’s why he protects players so much in the media even after bad performances, no doubt he is more angry behind the scenes.
Chelsea’s midfield once again looked lacklustre and out of idea tonight with N’Golo Kante leaving myself in the stadium why he was really on the pitch playing other than due to his reputation, he didn’t contribute defensively and offers very little going forward, on the ball he has declined massively, I used to think Kante was very technically underrated but this season there’s been too many loose touches and giveaways.
Chelsea’s options without Kovacic are Kante and Jorginho who are 31 years old, and Ruben Loftus Cheek, Saul, or Ross Barkley, not exactly the depth in quality that wins you a league title, is it?
Chelsea had the chance to sign Aurelien Tchouameni last summer for around £40-50m but declined with the thought being he needed another season in Ligue 1, opting for Saul instead on loan who has flopped.
Fans booing Romelu Lukaku :
Lukaku did not have a good game, he looked unfit and produced lacklustre effort but I was shocked that when he got subbed off to hear the boo’s around me from the Matthew Harding Stand.
I get frustrated, I wanted him off, I like Havertz more as a player and as a fit for our side, but I don’t think booing someone does them any favours. Romelu Clapped the fans and received boo’s, yes I know he did the interview and it was damaging to the relationship the fans had, I just think for the short term fans should try and support him as much as possible because I genuinely believe as much as the performances look like the opposite, he wants to turn things around at Chelsea and start scoring goals.
I have been to games for many many years and I have not heard boo’s for one of our own players as far as I can remember. The last incident was Chelsea fans booing Jorginho as he came on in a Europa league match in 2019 although I was not specifically there myself. Bakayoko was also boo’d in 2018 in an away match vs Watford.
It does no good to the club, player or manager and that should not have happened tonight. Thomas Tuchel even questioned that the boo’s must have come from Arsenal fans but no, they were loud Thomas, and they were from Chelsea “ Fans “
Cesar Azpilicueta arguing with a fan at full time :
As if there wasn’t enough drama tonight, Azpilicueta reacted angrily to a fan who slapped his chest towards him to signal “ Show more fight “
Chelsea’s captain walked over and pointed at the fan and was talking back and forth. I can understand both sides here, the fan is in the right to feel angry as standing in the cold tonight it was plainly obvious Arsenal wanted to win more than Chelsea. Never mind quality which Arsenal showed more of in general play, Chelsea’s effort from man 1 to 11 was NOT there.
Can you really question César’s commitment to Chelsea? No, but we of course don’t know if it was towards him in specific or to the team in general and the fan was then relaying that to Azpilicueta because he is the club’s captain.
I just think the reaction from Cesar was over the top, yes he scored, but it wasn’t a great performance from him and after giving a penalty away which led to Arsenal’s 4th goal, you would think he would just walk down the tunnel if he was that frustrated.
It didn’t look like he wanted to hear the fans opinion or view which was incredibly sad to see, it just looked like he was angry at him, which I cannot see why because as I said, there’s no reason for the fan not to want more fight and effort.
Chelsea face West Ham on the weekend and I am not looking forward to it, action is needed by the players to show they care more about just competing in semi finals and finals, every game should matter when you play for this club.
