Thomas Tuchel says his players looked ‘tired’ in the 1-1 draw versus Brighton and need some break ahead of the Super Sunday showdown facing Tottenham.
It was an often lazy performance from Chelsea as they took a point from the Amex Stadium, with Hakim Ziyech’s first-half strike being abandoned by Adam Webster’s free header.
Chelsea are unsuccessful in their last four Premier League outings, drawing three, and overlooked the opportunity to go above Liverpool into second.
Questioned to explain the latest poor league form, Tuchel answered: “I answered this question a hundred times, if you look at our situation of long-term injuries, of key players injured, and of Covid and you look at our schedule you will have the answer.”
“We are mentally tired and physically tired, you can see it in our performance, it’s as easy as that. We need to recharge the batteries, we need to reconnect.”
“This is my feeling, that’s why I give the players two days off and then we will use Friday and Saturday to prepare for Sunday.”
When later queried how much his team needed two days off, he appended: “So, so badly. You can say it’s an excuse but it’s like this.”
“Look at our schedule when we arrived at Man City, we had Carabao Cup in between, they did not. When we arrived here, they had more days to prepare. We’ve played like this since November, we are the team that plays and plays and plays.”
