We stepped off the mark just for a spell today
Thomas Tuchel, on his first visit to Turf Moor as Chelsea manager, watched his side come in level at 0-0 for the half time interval and then go back out to score four times in the second half.
Had there been words in the Chelsea dressing room? “It was very calm,” Tuchel said. “We just reminded everybody what we wanted to do, where the spaces were and where we want to find acceleration. Where we needed to step up was clearly up front. We needed to ask more questions and make life more difficult for the back four.”
“On the one hand, it was difficult because the pitch was so dry. We had a lot of ball possession but it was difficult to accelerate the game. The ball was somehow always stuck between our legs and once you pass it, it’s already one second too late and the spaces are already closed.
“We had a bit of a switch in tactics to give Kanté more space and to have two strikers on the pitch. The team did very well, we kept on believing and had a fantastic second half and a brilliant result.”
The early part of the second half was the most significant period when Chelsea took the game away from us and Sean Dyche said: “One goal affected us massively which is unusual for us. We lost our shape and all the good things that we did in the first half, and there were a lot of them.
“We went away from what we were doing in the first half, our shape was excellent and the fight and desire to get a foothold in the game, and in the second half, after they scored, we lost that for ten minutes and fair play to them, they are very powerful.
“It’s a headscratcher as I thought in the first half we were as strong as we have been against these type of sides, and we created one or two very good chances, but we can’t let one goal affect us as quickly as it did though.
“We lost sight of what we are good at in eight or nine minutes, and it’s not like us, especially in the past eight or nine games.”
Things need to improve from that. “We didn’t keep our shape against a very good group of players, and we will have to learn,” he added. “It’s the reality of the division, it’s a constant learning curve for us and we stepped off the mark just for a spell today, and once a game gets away from you against one of these sides, it’s very difficult, so it’s not easy to open teams up and they will punish you.
“It’s something that we’ll have to continually look at and we remind the players what we can do. The points are still on there, they are still on the board, and they are all huge games.”
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