Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel is fretting over the state of his squad ahead of the new season, and justifiably so.
Marcos Alonso, Cesar Azpilecueta and Timo Werner are all reportedly seeking moves away from Stamford Bridge.
Tumult was to be expected following Chelsea’s change in ownership, and it appears Thomas Tuchel has been unable to prevent it from affecting the mentality of his squad.
Raheem Sterling and Kalidou Koulibaly have been recruited but are not yet integrated. Their 4 – 0 defeat to Arsenal may have been a friendly, but Thomas Tuchel has grave concerns over it.
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“I am far from relaxed,” he said after the pre-season game against Arsenal.
“We were simply not good enough. We were simply not competitive. I look at the last season and parts of the game where we struggled, parts of the season where we struggled, and then we got sanctioned and players left us and some players are trying to leave us, and this is where it is. So we had an urgent appeal for quality players, a huge amount of quality players. We got two quality players but we are not competitive like this. Unfortunately you could see it today.”
“We will see, hopefully, development but at the moment, we have the same issues because we have the same players.
“If you want to play three at the back you need to have three in the back. If you don’t, it’s not worth playing three in the back,” he said.
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“Given that Kalidou (Koulibaly) was ready for only 25 mins today and who was available we tried to play 4-4-2.
“I think it was not a structural problem. It was behaviour in the structure. That’s much more important.”
