Chelsea presser notes: One injury, UCL format, and commitment

Chelsea pressers tend to feature a certain dance and each manager has their own preferences as to how they deal with it. This in turn causes the journalists to follow the manager’s lead as they try to get the spicy quote.

For Thomas Tuchel, the questions tend to give him a lot of room to explain his decisions and motives. His answers are holistic, so the questions tend to be holistic to draw those types of answers out.

But of course, injury news remains the primary reason to tune into pressers outside of transfer season. Mateo Kovacic remains the only player out which isn’t too surprising. On the one hand, it is good Chelsea arrives at such an intense period near fully fit. On the other hand, midfield is where Tuchel experiments the least so Jorginho and N’Golo Kante are sure to carry the load in the Champions League matches against Real Madrid.

The next most interesting part of the presser was Tuchel speaking against the new Champions League format. He doesn’t like the increased amount of games and he noted how it came in the middle of the night while everyone was distracted by Super League talks.

Now, this next sentence is by no means a knock on Tuchel. The manager came out much harder against the new Champions League format. Now, one can assume he couldn’t speak as freely as Pep Guardiola or Jurgen Klopp about Super League (though that in of itself is debatable), but one underappreciated side of the Super League fiasco was UEFA and their decisions. It makes much more sense that Tuchel can speak freely about the new Champions League format (either because the club didn’t tell him he couldn’t or because they told him expressly that he can). It is worth remembering that while the Super League was wrong, UEFA isn’t exactly a saint and the momentum against Super League probably does need to continue against UEFA basically pushing Super League lite through.

Other than that, the remaining key part of the presser had to do with Chelsea’s amazing defensive transformation under Tuchel. Obviously 3-4-3 has a great deal to do with this but Tuchel didn’t tap into that. Instead, he tapped into the commitment the players are showing throughout the pitch.

He noted that possession was sometimes the best defense, then the counter press, then stopping shots, then the keeper saving what gets through. He also noted that the defense has to trust the midfield and the midfield the attack and vice versa. Defense (and attack) as he stated is a team aspect.

Chelsea will need that commitment to get through Real Madrid. The squad is in good form and in a good mood at the moment and they will need to keep fighting in every match like it is a cup final. With the outside factors gone or at least minimized, the Blues can refocus on finishing the season strongly. Real Madrid is just the latest in a long series of finals for the Blues.