Southampton 2-1 Chelsea: Three lessons learnt in another defeat

2. The Blues still cannot handle pressure

When Tuchel arrived at the club in January 2021, he immediately went with Antonio Rudiger, Thiago Silva and Cesar Azpilicueta as his back three, despite Kurt Zouma playing 15 out of 19 league games up until that point. Many fans claimed it was due to Zouma’s “lack of composure on the ball,” which is compete nonsense as one of the things Zouma was known for when the Blues bought him was his passing.

However, many supporters claimed that while Zouma was a very good defender, he would not “fit” in Tuchel’s three-man back line because of how he handled the ball when playing out from the back. This claim would have had some meat to it if it wasn’t proven completely false every time the Blues came up against an opponent that pressed them very well.

Chelsea’s defenders, midfielder and forwards have always struggled when playing against pressing teams since Tuchel’s arrival.

Zouma left the club at the beginning of last season for West Ham United. The Barnsley game in the FA Cup tie in the 2020/21 FA Cup and almost every Southampton game since Tuchel arrived has proved that the Blues don’t have the players—anywhere across the pitch—to handle the pressure when pressed. Centerbacks are hardly ever pressed, so fixating on their “composure” is near futile. The fullbacks and central midfielders are often the ones pressed most often, and Chelsea has been unable to comfortably deal with that type of opposition in those areas for years.

It has become glaring this season that Chelsea cannot handle pressure, as the club has already lost two out of five games to high-pressing sides. Most recently, Southampton had Tuchel’s men frazzled as they pressed the Blues in key areas, and the players simply couldn’t get out of it. Tuchel has a wide selection of individuals at his disposal, and some of them are better at escaping pressure, but it seems the ones he trusts are not very good at it.

The German manager needs to find a way to play against these pressing teams soon. Otherwise, more clubs are going to catch on to the fact that the Blues have a problem when they’re pressed and they’ll just come prepared to every match.