Thomas Tuchel praised the ‘commitment and the discipline’ of his Chelsea side, as they won 6-0 at Southampton and showed a perfect reaction to recent defeats.
Throughout the win at St Mary’s the camera panned to Tuchel and he had a wry smile on his face as he knew the team meeting he had with his players in the week had obviously worked.
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Chelsea were superior from first minute to last, as Tuchel urged his team to show up after their defeats to Brentford and Real Madrid over the past seven days which saw them concede seven goals in total and lose both games.
Southampton bore the brunt of Chelsea’s newfound focus, as Ralph Hasenhuttl’s side made numerous defensive mistakes and Chelsea took full advantage.
Chelsea get perfect prep for huge game at Real
Speaking to the BBC after the game, Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel loved what he saw.
“The performance changed, the commitment and the discipline. This is how we want to play and we gave an answer finally because you could see it on the scoreboard. It reflects the performance today which was very good,” Tuchel said.
“It is always a players’ game but we try to prepare them as well as possible. We are always happy for players to manage the game and they did. You could see they were focused to play to the plan and we did it with concentration, commitment, hunger and of course with quality.”
Chelsea had created lots of chances in recent games and even in their 3-1 midweek defeat at home to Real Madrid they created numerous big opportunities in the second half.
That defeat could be the best thing that happened to them as it seems to have refocused Chelsea with their season now on the line. They’re going to finish in the top four of the Premier League and they are in the FA Cup semifinals, but their main aim is to now overturn Real’s two-goal lead and try to defend their European title.
Tuchel knows that won’t be easy, as he said in the week that his side couldn’t turn things around against Real. This reaction at Southampton could prove that Chelsea have a chance of reaching the Champions League semifinals after all.
“It is a completely different game and opponent. The situation does not get easy. First of all it was necessary to do the job here. That will be a very difficult task and there is no change to it. We did what we wanted and that is the good news,” Tuchel said.
