Thomas Tuchel is hoping Chelsea can find a way through their difficult moment and find solutions to their problems following a 4-0 thrashing from Arsenal.
Chelsea were blown away by the Gunners in Orlando on Sunday morning (UK) as goals from Gabriel Jesus, Martin Odegaard, Bukayo Saka and Sambi Lokonga inflicted misery on the Blues.
It has thrown concern on how ready Chelsea are for the start of the 2022/23 Premier League season which gets underway in two weeks time.
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Tuchel has already admitted Chelsea are off the pace and not competitive enough, and that proved itself against Mikel Arteta’s side at the Camping World Stadium in Orlando.
Pre-season preparations haven’t been ideal and they have one more game to work on specific areas when they head to Italy to face Udinese next Friday.
The Chelsea head coach knows it’s a time to focus on how to improve during a moment that ’hurts’, insisting the only way to get better is by stepping up and finding solutions.
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"My personal feeling, I don’t know if I ever lost a match in pre-season 4-0,” he said post-match in Orlando.
“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.
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"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."
Tuchel believes one of the issues Chelsea are facing is down to the commitment of the squad, many of whom he thinks are considering their futures and exploring exit routes out of Stamford Bridge this summer.
He added: "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.
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"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."
Topics: Thomas Tuchel, Chelsea, Arsenal, Football
Matthew Debono