Thomas Tuchel showed his discontent at some of his Chelsea players who were not fully committed during their 4-0 defeat to Arsenal in pre-season.
Chelsea were thrashed by their London rivals in Orlando, Florida on Sunday morning (UK), ending their tour of the United States on a negative note as they flew back to England to continue and wrap up their pre-season preparations.
The current side is undergoing a rebuild. Several players have departed this summer, including Antonio Rudiger, Andreas Christensen and Romelu Lukaku. It has left Tuchel needing to replace, before being able to improve the team.
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“We are rebuilding, not improving the squad. We are rebuilding. This is always challenging, but we are up for the challenge,” Tuchel said back in May at the end of the 2021/22 season.
Raheem Sterling and Kalidou Koulibaly have been signed, both who have featured and impressed in their pre-season appearance/s.
However, more signings are craved by Tuchel this summer. But it isn’t just incomings that are desired, outgoings are too but Chelsea are struggling to offload many players due to the lack of offers and high wages putting prospective clubs off.
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Tuchel insisted that the Arsenal defeat hadn’t changed the view on signings being required having already made an ‘urgent appeal for quality signings’.
The Chelsea head coach admitted: “The analysing of the season does not change because of this game. Unfortunately, it proved my point and the last week proves my point. I would prefer to not be right and I did everything to prove myself wrong, but at the moment I feel I was right when I look at the last season and at the parts of the game where we struggled and how we struggled.
"We got sanctioned and players left us, we know that some players are trying to leave us, and this is where it is. We had an urgent appeal for quality players and a huge amount of quality players.
"We've got two quality players – that is no doubt – but we are not competitive like this and unfortunately, we could see it today."
But Tuchel’s frustrations were clear to see and in large quantities, which saw him blame players for looking for potential exit routes this summer, impacting their mental and physical commitment on the pitch.
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He added: “I saw today a team in Arsenal who are mentally committed to an idea of playing, a level of exhaustion, a level of physical commitment that we could not match.
"Also, a level of mental commitment that we lacked because we have a lot of players who are thinking about leaving and looking at their options.
'We have players that have left and I think at the moment that's obvious."
The 48-year-old makes a valid point with the likes of Cesar Azpilicueta, Marcos Alonso, Hakim Ziyech and Timo Werner all being linked with switches this summer.
Tuchel is caught in a tricky position. He is having to manage the squad he has, while keeping unwanted players, as well as offloading youngsters to the Development Squad to earn minutes, seen with the departures of Billy Gilmour and Harvey Vale during their tour of the US.
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He’s under pressure to succeed under the new owners who are backing him in the transfer window this summer. It’s not gone fully according to plan so far, but Tuchel will now hope his rallying cry to his squad will be heard as they unite for the start of the 2022/23 campaign.
Featured Image Credit: AlamyTopics: Thomas Tuchel, Chelsea, Football, Arsenal
