Thomas Tuchel was pleased to take many positives from Chelsea's 3-1 win over Udinese on Friday evening in Italy, but rued their cutting edge as they settled for just three goals at the Dacia Arena.
Chelsea claimed the win with three goals in Italy to add some positivity into the camp ahead of their Premier League opener against Everton next weekend.
The trip to Italy was split up into two squads, with the first getting the run-out on Friday, which saw the likes of Raheem Sterling, Kalidou Koulibaly and N'Golo Kante play.
Advert
Kante, Sterling and Mason Mount all got on the scoresheet, capping off fine individual performances against the Serie A outfit, while the team also were much-improved from their dismal loss to Arsenal on their USA tour.
The second squad will do it on Saturday morning at 10am (UK) as they get given 90 minutes, or significant minutes, by Tuchel ahead of the new season to boost their match sharpness.
But from Friday's performance, Tuchel was extremely happy but admitted his side could've and should've had a lot more goals to their name.
Advert
Speaking the official Chelsea website, Tuchel reflected: "We trained a lot this week, especially two days ago so we did not have the freshest legs. But we have a lot of positive things to take away from this game.
"It’s a good performance, it’s a good result, we could’ve scored much more, should’ve scored much more.
"But overall, it’s a lot of positive stuff to take away from this."
He added: "Tomorrow (Saturday), we play another match here against Udinese, another team, to have minutes in our legs.
Advert
"Then it’s two days break. Then we prepare nothing else but Everton because they are right in front of the door and we need to improve, we are not ready yet.
"We don’t have to be ready yet, we have another week and then it’s the time to be on the best level and there’s still some way to go."
The Chelsea head coach was also full of praise for Sterling and Koulibaly, adding: "He (Sterling) had chances, very heavily involved in other chances, it was a good performance.
Advert
"He (Koulibaly deserves (the praise). A very, very good signing.
"A strong personality, a strong player and happy that he could play 70 minutes now.
"He’s getting fitter and fitter which is very important for us for the start of the season."
Topics: Thomas Tuchel, Chelsea, Football
Matthew Debono