Chelsea tells Trevoh Chalobah and Kepa Arrizabalaga to stay for this season.
Speaking in the press conference ahead of Chelsea’s next game against Leicester City (h/t Football.London), manager Thomas Tuchel gave his views on the club’s Champions League group stage opponents for this season.
The Blues have drawn with Italian, Austrian and Croatian league champions AC Milan, RB Salzburg and Dinamo Zagreb in this year’s group, which presents itself an interesting challenge despite none of those teams being as strong as the 2021 competition winners.
Tuchel is wary of any complacency, as he should be. He talked about how no group in the Champions League is easy and classed this one as no different. The German also joked about having to book the tickets for Zagreb faster, as Mateo Kovacic’s family is taking all of them (a reference to Kovacic being a Croatian national).
Here’s what the Chelsea manager said (h/t Football.London):
I only care about our group and we need to be fast with away tickets because Mateo Kovacic’s family is buying all the tickets.
It’s always a difficult group. I’ve never experienced Champions League with an easy group. I don’t care about the names. This is the level.
On paper, the Blues should win enough points out of this group to finish top and avoid a tough tie in the last-16 stage. Although, thinking along those lines would be dangerous territory for the team, which needs to take every team and game seriously.
After all, as mentioned above, all the three teams drawn did put their name in the hat as their respective country’s league champions. So, they know how to win football matches under pressure.
The Champions League starts the week after the next, though there are three league games coming up for Chelsea before the first group game.
The start of the season hasn’t been ideal for the Blues, who started with a win and then followed with a draw and an embarrassing defeat.
They would be looking to get back on track with a win against Leicester, before going into the other two league games before the opening night of this season’s top-tier European football. The schedule will be unrelenting yet rewarding if the team starts winning games.
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