Tuchel happy to reach another final but sees need for ‘huge improvement’ after sloppy win over Spurs

After 55 minutes of good football over the weekend, Chelsea managed just 50 or so today, but amusingly, it was enough against Spurs just as it was enough against non-league Chesterfield on Saturday.

Granted, Chelsea came in with a two-goal lead from the first leg, and mostly had to just guard against complacency, but while we did that well at first, eventually the focus and the effort waned. Fortunately, we were not made to pay for it, thanks in large part to VAR doing its job correctly for once (or thrice).

So we can all go home happy, but with some things to improve upon as well.

“Of course, everybody wants to get to the final. We are very happy because Wembley is waiting, full house, cup final, this is where you want to be as footballers and coaches. This was the target and now we are there. Hard work and two good matches were needed and we did the job.”

“We started well, created chances, scored and then had even more confidence. We played a very good 30-35 minutes. [But then] we lost a bit of control, focus, some important duels and were lucky that suddenly we didn’t concede. We were a bit sloppy and weren’t full aware of the danger. I had the feeling on the touchline we were playing with fire.

“Second half again, strong start for 15 minutes but again the same story. We conceded a penalty that wasn’t a penalty or a big chance. We struggled to cope with the momentum. We had many ball losses, lost many challenges one-on-one.

“So big space to improve, it wasn’t a super bad game, but it was an ok game and there were some moments and minutes there were good. But there are some that need huge improvement. We have to do better but performance-wise over the two matches, we deserved to win. For today, there is a lot to improve.”

-Thomas Tuchel; source: Football.London

Job done, which is what matters in the end.