Tuchel happy with Chelsea’s play, not happy with Chelsea’s result against Manchester United

As the late, great Dennis Green once said, “they are who we thought they were, and we let them off the hook”.

Manchester United are who we thought they were, a broken, despondent, aimless, uninspired collection of former and future greats, who lack any sense of footballing cohesion. Chelsea carved them open repeatedly and at will. We looked certain of a first win at Old Trafford since 2013. And on another day, this would’ve been another 6-0 like down at St Mary’s the other week.

And then we let them off the hook by not finishing our chances. And then when we did finally finish one — left back Marcos Alonso once again showing all the strikers and wingers how to actually finish — we immediately let them off the hook again by giving up the equalizer. And then we hit the post for good measure, too, just to underline the silliness of this game.

As dominant a 1-1 draw as you’ll ever see, and our position in the table remains secure, so I suppose we can focus on some positives. Head coach Thomas Tuchel certainly found plenty to be happy about — and plenty to be frustrated about as well (without pointing fingers) — even if many of these issues are all too familiar.

“We should have had three points tonight. On and off the ball I was happy with how we played. We were very brave without the ball and the performance was excellent but we lacked a bit of determination and maybe a bit of luck inside the box.

“We have had it a bit too often this season where we have drawn games when we were clearly the better team. We had it in the first half of the season. We should have won this game.”

-Thomas Tuchel; source: BBC

Should’ve, would’ve, could’ve. You could say it’s “one of those games” where the bounces and the fates just don’t go your way, though with Chelsea it often feels like that should be used in reference with games where we actually convert chances clinically.

“The guys in the attack are still young and we will not start pointing fingers because lately, they have been very, very composed and very efficient in front of goal. Against Southampton and in the win at the Bernabéu, we took our chances very well and very precisely.

“[But] the boys are still young: Mason (Mount) is still young, Timo is still young, Kai is still young. It will come. They will learn because they are good guys and have the right attitude. It’s not always easy to arrive fully composed and with the biggest ease because we demand a lot off the counter-pressing, attacking with the first line when the opponents wants to play out. So they have a bit of credit.”

-Thomas Tuchel; source: Football.London

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