September 01, (THEWILL) – After Chelsea’s 2-1 loss to Southampton on Tuesday, Blues manager, Thomas Tuchel, criticised his team’s mental weakness.
Raheem Sterling gave the Blues the lead early on, but they soon lost their composure. Goals from Romeo Lavia and Adam Armstrong, handed Tuchel’s team a defeat that could have been more resounding if it were not for goal-line clearances from Marc Cucurella and Thiago Silva and Tuchel acknowledged that his players are giving into intimidation much too readily.
The German manager said: “We are not tough enough to win these matches away. It was the same story in Leeds, there we thought the problem was we didn’t score in the first 25 minutes and then they pushed us off-balance in two minutes with two goals and we could not find any answers. Today, we scored so everything was okay, but one set piece again, one sloppy defending again, we were off-balance and we did not react to it.
We were lucky not to concede a third goal at the beginning of the second half. We were not tough enough as a team to react or push it over the line for us. Soft defending. What stops that is pure mentality, stop it with defending mentality. There is no superiority for the opponent, there is no need to give shots away, just toughen up as a team and show a different mentality
“I don’t like to talk about it normally because you cannot prove it with data or tactical position, but it is like this. Both goals are cheap, soft goals and should not happen if you expect to win a match in the evening at an away stadium.”
About the Author
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
