Chelsea squad isn’t competitive enough as Thomas Tuchel urges for more quality players
Thomas Tuchel doesn’t believe the current Chelsea squad at his disposal is competitive enough as Arsenal thrash the Blues in the Orlando pre-season friendly.
The Stamford Bridge side were poor against their Premier League rivals. In all areas of the pitch, Chelsea made mistakes. Arsenal capitalised on the Stamford Bridge side’s lack of intensity and quality.
Tuchel, speaking after the 4-0 defeat via the Express, said that the game proved his point. The German feels the squad has been struggling over the pre-season and the gaffer saw similar cracks during last season as well.
“My analysing of the season does not change because of this game. Unfortunately, it proved my point. The last week proves my point. I would absolutely prefer not to be right.
“I did everything to prove myself wrong but at the moment I feel that I was right. 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.”
Chelsea were handed an unprecedented sanction that made our transfer activity uncertain. Also, we couldn’t negotiate new contracts with any player in the squad.
Antonio Rudiger and Andreas Christensen left at the end of last season with their contracts expiring. The two were key members of our XI, especially the German centre-back.
This meant that the Blues needed to go out in the market and buy certain players in order to restore some of the gaps left in the squad. But as of yet, we’ve only brought in two new players.
“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.”
Tuchel is right when it comes to the squad not being competitive enough. We may have finished third in the PL last season, but there were some worrying signs in our performances by the end of the season.
With some of our prominent squad members leaving and uncertainty around the futures of other stalwarts, we must strengthen. The teams that were above us in the previous campaign have dipped their hand in the market and made some impressive signings.
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For us to be challenging for titles next season, Tuchel should be given the tools he’s asking for. If a few more quality players are what the German is asking for, we need to make sure they’re given to him. Tuchel has shown that he’s one of the best managers in the world and we need to listen to him.