Tuchel not focusing long on Chelsea ‘completely’ underperforming against Watford

Over the weekend, Chelsea played quite well but had to settle for just one point against Manchester United. Today, Chelsea played quite horrendously, but still were able to walk away with all three points against Watford. (A team who beat United, 4-1, not long ago, incidentally.)

Football: where you can’t judge purely by results, but results are all that matter at the end of the day. But that’s a dichotomy to discuss for another day.

Then again, there isn’t much to discuss really from this game. Chelsea played very, very, very ... very ... badly, but converted a couple chances, hit the post once, and survived by the skin of Edouard Mendy’s ankles at the other end. The only takeaways from this 2-1 win are things we should not do. Ever. Again.

For Tuchel in fact, in his 52nd match in charge, this was Chelsea’s worst effort of his tenure. (And hopefully the worst of his next 52 matches in charge as well.)

“Very sloppy and it was a very unusual performance for us.

“[We] were not ready. Not only maybe. I am involved in that. I have to get the team ready. I didn’t prepare them for what was coming because it was the first time we completely underperformed as a team. We didn’t win first balls, second balls, we did not cope well with the pressure. It is one thing to win or lose challenges but we did not even find them.

[We] struggled in the build up and skilful solutions. We needed to do the basics better, hang in there and change the mentality and to accept it. [We] can admit today that we were lucky to win this game. It was a very unusual performance for us, I will not focus long on this match because we play on Saturday again. [We] are in this together and we got a lucky win today.”

-Thomas Tuchel; source: Football.London

The win keeps Chelsea one point clear at the top of the table, with Manchester City and Liverpool both winning today as well.

We can count our lucky stars tonight. We’re going to need to do a lot better on Saturday, when we take on West Ham at the Olympic Stadium.