After watching his team suffer two successive heavy defeats in less than seven days, coach Thomas Tuchel had to have an “honest” meeting with his players ahead of the Premier League game against Southampton and the UEFA Champions League game against Real Madrid.
The last two months have not been funny for Chelsea. They lost their owner, Roman Abramovich, due to the ties the Russian billionaire reportedly has with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president who ordered the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
Due to this, Chelsea and the entire squad had to anxiously wait for a new owner as renewal of contracts and signing or selling of players have been halted until a new owner is announced.
In the midst of that, Chelsea’s coach, Thomas Tuchel, and his estranged wife, Sissi Imago ended their 13-year-old marriage.
After the March international break, the off-the-field drama reflected heavily on the performance of the team. Things have been so bad that Chelsea lost 4-1 to lowly rated Brentford on April 2, three days after the March international break.
Unfortunately, three days after the heavy defeat in the Premier League, they had to face Real Madrid in the first leg of the UEFA Champions League quarter-final stage at Stamford. Chelsea were so poor that they gifted Real Madrid the opportunity to defeat them 3-1 at home on April 6.
The result looked so bad that coach Thomas Tuchel admitted that if Chelsea continue to play the way they played in their last two games, the quarter-final tie between them and Real Madrid was death.
Ahead of the second leg tie in Madrid on April 12 at 20:00, Chelsea are scheduled to play against Southampton later today, April 9, 2022. Earlier, coach Thomas Tuchel noted that if Chelsea fail to beat Southampton in the game which will kick off at 15:00 today, they should forget about the possibility of knocking out Real Madrid from this season’s UEFA Champions League campaign.
Less than 24 hours before the clash against Southampton, Coach Tuchel revealed that he has met with his players and they have told themselves some “honest” truth.
“It was not a discussion type of meeting,” coach Thomas Tuchel said on Friday, April 8, ahead of their visit to Southampton’s St Mary’s stadium.
“It was more that I gave my point of view and that’s sometimes necessary…
“We always take the players’ view into account. But over the last two games, we felt it was maybe necessary to give our point of view.
“It was behind closed doors in an atmosphere where everybody can take criticism.
“We don’t point fingers, we don’t look for guilty people, we are in this together.
“But we needed to point out some things in our game where we were not happy, but it was about the game.
“We are aware of the problems and we don’t like them. I don’t know if we are concerned, but this is very untypical for us.
“We looked into it and we talked to the team about it, to try to figure out how to improve and to stop this direction of travel as soon as possible.”
Coach Thomas Tuchel does not know if the meeting is a turning point
Coach Thomas Tuchel and his boys need to win the Premier League game against Southampton on Saturday to strengthen their stand on the third spot.
They also need to travel to Madrid and beat Real Madrid at least 3-0 on April 12, 2022, to qualify for the semi-final stage of the Champions League.
Hence, coach Thomas Tuchel would hope that the “honest” meeting he had with his players after two successive heavy defeats could motivate the players to perform a miracle. But the coach has noted that he does not know if the meeting was a turning point.
“I don’t know if the meeting is a turning point, you need to take care of the process. And the process [on Thursday] was, to be honest with the team and explain your reactions and why it’s like this,” coach Thomas Tuchel said.
“It’s necessary so the players understand if the manager is sometimes angry. I think I had some reasons and I presented my reasons and from there on we go.
“Nobody will lack support from now on, nobody will lack my love or my appreciation for how they are as a group and as players.
“But sometimes you have to handle things like this, it isn’t amateur football and you have to be honest.”
🗣 “When you face teams like Brentford, Southampton, and also very soon Crystal Palace, Arsenal who are not on international duty [European Football].”
— Football Daily (@footballdaily) April 8, 2022
Thomas Tuchel admits the fixture list for Chelsea is hard but refused to blame it for their poor form. pic.twitter.com/1ohezdmJB2
Chelsea are currently sitting on the third spot on the league table with 59 points in 29 games, five points above 4th and 5th placed Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal. They need to keep winning in the league to protect their 3rd spot.
