It was all going swimmingly for Thomas Tuchel for the last couple months, but drama’s never too far away at Chelsea. So after a run of 14 unbeaten in all competitions for the new head coach, one singular defeat was all that was needed to get back to business as (these-days-)usual at the Bridge. Boring, boring Chelsea no more, sorry, Tommy T.
And nothing goes better with a shock defeat than some training ground ‘bust-up’, however common such training ground incidents may be. The general levels of secrecy at football clubs lends itself perfectly to this — we’re only a few steps (i.e. defeats) away from another “3 rats” situation if the media have their way.
Even if the Rudiger-Arrizabalaga handbags had any deeper meaning, which they probably don’t even if they involve two players with some decent history of headlines on and off the pitch (rightly or wrongly), it only behooves us (players, fans, coaches) to look at it in a positive light: passions, competitiveness, etc.
Here’s Marcos Alonso, himself part of some behind-the-scenes drama not so long ago, with the only proper (public or private) response in such situations.
“These are things that happen. This shows the level of competition there is in the team, the hunger we saw on training ground — that’s good for the team. Of course, even before training finished it was all good.
“[It is] nothing new, it has always happened, it will still happen and the thing we need to take is take the positives and move on and get ready for the next game.”
-Marcos Alonso; source: beIN Sports via Football.London
As the initial reports made it clear, Rudiger quickly apologized to Arrizabalaga after getting sent in to the dressing room a few minutes before the end of training, and there’s a good chance he starts on Wednesday as usual as we take on FC Porto in the Champions League quartefinal first leg.
Time to concentrate on that massive occasion and take out our frustrations on the Portuguese champions!
"It's nothing new... we just need to take the positives and move on!"
— beIN SPORTS (@beINSPORTS_EN) April 5, 2021
Marcos Alonso has had his say on the training ground incident between Rudiger and Kepa. #beINPL #CFC pic.twitter.com/Kpo78fZZdL