Thomas Tuchel opens up as Brentford imposes a humiliating defeat on Chelsea at Stamford Bridge
Speaking in his post-match presser as quoted by Football.London, Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel spoke about playing after the international break as the Blues succumbed to an embarrassing defeat at the hands of Brentford at Stamford Bridge.
Tuchel’s men suffered a shock 1-4 defeat to the Bees in the West London derby. While the first half was largely cagey and both sides struggled to create a lot of meaningful chances, we got to see some end-to-end action in the second period of the game.
It was a forgettable day for us, even though we opened the scoring with an exquisite strike from Antonio Rudiger in the 48th minute with a long-range effort that would have baffled even the best goalkeepers in the world. The celebrations didn’t last very long as Brentford quickly equalised in the 50th minute via a Vitaly Janelt shot as the ball zoomed past Edouard Mendy.
Christian Eriksen doubled the lead in the 54th minute as Thomas Frank’s men were quick to counter from a Chelsea corner. Brentford weren’t quite satisfied as Janelt added another goal in the 60th minute and Yoanne Wissa didn’t take time to get on the scoreboard after entering the field in the 87th minute with Rudiger and Thiago Silva failing to clear their lines in the box.
Speaking post the match as quoted by Football.London, Tuchel gave his honest verdict about the game and shed light on how playing after the international break could be a tough task.
You don’t need to lose but my expectations were not too high. It’s difficult to play after the international break and play as the favourite. It makes things very difficult. I would agree if we conceded the first and second, but we were in the lead and in charge. I did not see it coming.
What went wrong today?
It would be difficult to point out just a couple of instances from the game, but hats off to our London rivals who put up a spirited performance today. We broke the deadlock with a strike that looked like it came straight from the sets of a Hollywood movie but our opponents would finally have the last laugh. The backline was all sixes and sevens in the second half as our opponents were ready for an all-out assault
We played without our key midfielders in Jorginho and Mateo Kovacic as the latter was brought on only towards the end of the fixture. The absence of the experienced duo would have definitely helped the cause of Brentford on the day they were successful in breaking down our attacks from the back and also put in a great shift in the middle of the park.
While it would have been easy to let their shoulders drop, Brentford struck us when the iron was still hot and were at their clinical best. Most of these players are returning from international duty with all the emotional exhaustion and fatigue that comes from representing your country.
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We can thus understand why the German manager made the following comments and he would now be looking to rally his troops as we take on Real Madrid in the upcoming UEFA Champions League tie. We hope that the club could put this performance behind them and rather use it as motivation to get our hands on more silverware before the end of the 2021-22 campaign.
