“I can only laugh”- Tuchel claims tight fixture list is impacting Chelsea’s recent performances

After Brighton embarrassment, Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel comments on tight schedule in recent weeks

Speaking after his side’s 1-1 draw against Brighton at the Amex Stadium, Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel admitted that his team were struggling to cope with the fixture schedule and could not be blamed for their performance against the Seagulls last night (h/t football.london).

The game saw Brighton come back from behind to draw the game at one goal apiece, with Tuchel admitting that his side was a bit lucky to be one goal ahead at the break, given their performance last night. The Blues struggled to show real quality against a very good Brighton side, who turned in a wonderful attacking display in the second half to peg Chelsea back at the end of ninety minutes.

The German coach reserved praise for his opponents and said it was hard to analyse such games, refusing to ‘be angry’ at his side’s performance in the game.

“No, but it’s hard to analyse games like this. We have to respect the opponent. It is very, very tough to play at Brighton. Other teams will struggle to get points here. It is tough when you are at full strength and are not tired. So there are some obstacles to overcome and I refuse today to be angry because it’s not about our ambition or our want.”

Tuchel claimed that his players were tired and that there is a certain level of fatigue that he can feel in the squad, with the fixture schedule taking its toll on players. This was the Blues’ third away game in seven days amidst a packed schedule.

The former Dortmund manager claimed that his side has been playing games in quick succession since November, resulting in his side arriving for games despite not reaching their full potential. Tuchel admitted that there is not much he can do about the schedule, but accept the given situation as it is the team’s reality and move on to the next game.

Tuchel criticizes fixture schedule

The German admitted that he was looking at the bright side of things given his situation, where he at least had four days to prepare his team for the Brighton clash. He said that he did not want to use the packed schedule as an excuse, but rather as an explanation for his team’s performance away at the Amex Stadium.

“We don’t do this for one week and then we complain. We don’t complain now either but we just explain why the performance can look like this in the middle of January in an away game at Brighton. This can happen and if you tell me that this never happened before to any Chelsea team or team in the Premier League, I can only laugh because it’s happened.”

The Premier League is known for its packed festive schedule across the winter, with most teams playing four matches during the festive period – one just before Christmas, two between Boxing Day and New Year’s Day, and one early in the New Year before the third round of the FA Cup. This year, however, the league saw a Covid outbreak plague teams across the top-flight, resulting in multiple fixture postponements.

To make things worse for Chelsea, we have had to deal with not only the packed Premier League schedule with its rescheduled games due to Covid, but also multiple games in the Carabao Cup, FA Cup, and the upcoming FIFA Club World Cup. As a result, players have had very little rest since November, and it seems to have led to fatigue in the squad.

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We will be desperate for the Premier League’s winter break to kick in so we get a break from our ridiculously tight schedule, with reports that the winter break will be reintroduced this year after it was scrapped last year. However, with multiple games being postponed by the league for Covid reasons, the decision may backfire with a backlog of games to be played post the winter break as well.

Tuchel has already announced a two-day break ahead of our Spurs game on Sunday, so that the players can rest and recover from the events of the last week. Hopefully, we can assume that we have gotten through the hardest part of the packed schedule, and it remains easy pickings with enough rest time in between for our players to perform at their full potential.