Thomas Tuchel says Chelsea lacked ‘belief’ and ‘freshness’ in Man City loss as they fail test of title credentials
THOMAS TUCHEL admitted Chelsea lacked ‘belief’ and ‘freshness’ as they failed the test of Premier League champions Manchester City.
Only a deflected Gabriel Jesus goal on 53 minutes separated the sides and gave Pep Guardiola’s his first win in four matches against Tuchel.
And the German admitted his side were second best with their only real push coming in the last 20 minutes.
Tuchel told BT Sport: “We lost the game and City deserved to win.
“Until the goal we were very strong in the last 20 metres off the field, but only there unfortunately.
“Everywhere else we were not good enough to relieve pressure and to hurt them.
“The performance was not complex enough. Overall, simply, we were not at our best level.
“After the goal it felt a little bit like the belief in winning was bigger than the fear of losing, I don’t know why.
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“We tried to push and get the crowd behind us. It was a very emotional game but never on our highest level.
“We conceded a goal from a set play. Even if we wanted to go for long balls for Romelu [Lukaku] it was not precise enough.
“I didn’t really feel the belief that we could escape the short balls. It was doubtful and it felt like we had something to lose.
“We lacked a little bit of freshness also.”
Chelsea, following a wins at Tottenham and against Aston Villa in a League Cup penalty shootout, were playing their third game in eight days.
And they now face a travel to Italy were Serie A giants Juventus await them in the Champions League.
Mason Mount, 22, and Christian Pulisic, 23, missed out on City’s trip to Stamford Bridge, in a game where Reece James, 21, limped off after 29 minutes.