Inside Thomas Tuchel's Chelsea Plans For Cobham Return After Dismal Arsenal Defeat Ahead Of Udinese Friendly

The 2022/23 Premier League season gets underway in less than two weeks, but Chelsea still have a lot of areas to work on and improve ahead of the new campaign, and time is running out. 

Chelsea saw their pre-season tour of the United States come to an end on Sunday morning (UK) and in dismal fashion, on the receiving end of a 4-0 thrashing from Arsenal in Orlando, Florida.

It was a performance and result that didn’t impress head coach Thomas Tuchel who was extremely critical of the defeat Stateside, an alarming sign as the season draws closer and closer. 

“I think we deserved to lose – which is fair enough – because we were simply not good enough,” Tuchel said honestly at full-time. 

“We were absolutely not competitive. The worrying part is the level of commitment, physically and mentally, for this match was not the same, it was far higher for Arsenal than us.

"We can argue they played with I think their strongest line-up; they've had now together several weeks and for more than one year. They've strengthened their line-up, played the same structure, and this is the line-up they'll try to start Premier League games.

"It was not our strongest lineup and this is part of an explanation but only a little part. The other part is worrying."

Preparation time is running out to be ready for the opening game of the season against Everton on 6 August, something the Blues boss doesn’t know if his side will be ready for. 

"I can not guarantee,” responded Tuchel, when asked if his side will be ready come their trip to Goodison Park in under two weeks time. 

Chelsea lost several players this summer and only two additions have been made so far - Raheem Sterling and Kalidou Koulibaly - as Tuchel targets more signings to be competitive. 

He is growing increasingly frustrated, making that publicly clear, amid concerns of being well off the pace to their hoped title challengers of Manchester City, Liverpool and others. 

The Blues don’t have long left before they face Frank Lampard’s Toffees. Chelsea have just one game left of pre-season which comes against Udinese next Friday in Italy, their final chance to show signs of improvement. 

Chelsea flew back to England straight after their defeat to Arsenal on the east coast, and Tuchel outlined their plans for next week in the hope of finding solutions to their current problems. 

"My personal feeling, I don’t know if I ever lost a match in pre-season 4-0,” the 48-year-old added. 

“I can't remember not winning two matches in a row in pre-season. I’m a huge fan of a strong pre-season in everything: atmosphere, feeling, performance, belief.

"I am superstitious but not in a way that I say bad pre-season has to mean a bad season. That makes no sense to me. I am in it, a part of it, and need to find solutions.

"We fly home now and we have one-and-a-half days only, on Tuesday we need to present solutions, we need to present actions. Me and the coaching staff, together with the team, need to step up and find a way through this because it hurts at the moment.

This will come through new signings, but also departures, something Tuchel believes is affecting the commitment levels on the pitch after digging out many players who are considering their futures in west London.

He concluded: “I saw today a team in Arsenal who are mentally committed to an idea of playing, a level of exhaustion, a level of physical commitment that we could not match.

"Also, a level of mental commitment that we lacked because we have a lot of players who are thinking about leaving and looking at their options. We have players that have left and I think at the moment that's obvious."

More conversations will need to be had between Tuchel, Boehly and co otherwise Chelsea risk falling behind their rivals considerably in the early part of the new season.