Having seen his side fall to only our second defeat in the Premier League this season, Thomas Tuchel had no intention of condemning the performance overall as a bad one, but the boss did lament individual errors that lead to our downfall in the 3-2 loss at West Ham.
Having gone ahead through Thiago Silva, the Blues gave away a penalty and then despite Mason Mount restoring the lead, we allowed the home side to score twice in the second half, the frustrating winner coming late on with the aid of a deflection.‘I don't see our performance as different than against Man United,’ said Tuchel as he began his summing up.‘The performance is enough to even win the game but what we clearly see is that we give easy goals away and this is very unusual. We make big mistakes and we have done this now for three matches, against Man United, Watford and again today. If you do this at this kind of level you cannot expect to have results.‘If you want clean sheets, if you want to dominate games, if you want to protect yourself against counter-attacks, it's impossible to do these kinds of mistakes. We did that now three times in a row and it is simply too much.
Having gone ahead through Thiago Silva, the Blues gave away a penalty and then despite Mason Mount restoring the lead, we allowed the home side to score twice in the second half, the frustrating winner coming late on with the aid of a deflection.‘I don't see our performance as different than against Man United,’ said Tuchel as he began his summing up.‘The performance is enough to even win the game but what we clearly see is that we give easy goals away and this is very unusual. We make big mistakes and we have done this now for three matches, against Man United, Watford and again today. If you do this at this kind of level you cannot expect to have results.‘If you want clean sheets, if you want to dominate games, if you want to protect yourself against counter-attacks, it's impossible to do these kinds of mistakes. We did that now three times in a row and it is simply too much.
‘We cannot give any excuses that we are tired. It's absolutely normal to be tired if you play Premier League through winter. It is a question of absolute focus. It's a question of detail. It's a question of precision and it's a question of risk management - where you take the risk and where you absolutely don't take the risk.‘If you invite a team like West Ham United into the last 20 metres by giving big ball losses then you are in trouble. This is a no-brainer.’Tuchel refuses at this stage to consider the impact of the defeat on the title challenge, instead concerning himself with more immediate matters.‘The [title] race is not interesting at the moment,’ he said, ‘What is interesting is the next 90 minutes and having the focus right and the attitude right and taking care about the details. We are not good enough on the details in the moment. We do too many big mistakes and we need to care about the details. There is no need to ask big questions or start doubting the big picture. If you play at West Ham it is about details and without doing big mistakes, there is a big chance that we win in this game.’
Goalie form and injury update
It was Edouard Mendy who conceded the penalty when he delayed on the ball after a poor pass from Jorginho.‘Edou is going through a rough period,’ admitted our head coach. ‘I don't know why exactly but he seems to have lost a bit of confidence. His decision making was not on the highest level today but with the first goal we also put him in a really awkward situation. He could have saved the situation, he did not, and we are far away from blaming anybody but we need to admit that we do too many crucial mistakes at the moment that cost us a potential win against Man United and cost us today a potential win.’
Tuchel concluded by talking about injuries to Kai Havertz and Marcos Alonso, and midfielders who are currently out.
‘Kai has huge pain, Marcos Alonso has back pain, so it's another two substitutes due to injury,’ he reported.‘I have no idea when N’Golo Kante will be back and we're missing also Mateo Kovacic for five or six weeks. Also Jorginho is playing with a hip pain since many days and you can see it.’