Thomas
Tuchel criticised his Chelsea players for "not being tough enough" and their
"soft defending" after losing 2-1 at Southampton.
Chelsea slumped to their second defeat of the season when Romeo Lavia and
Adam Armstrong delivered a stunning first-half turnaround following Raheem
Sterling's opener.
The Blues have performed inconsistently across their opening five games,
taking only seven points which leaves them in eighth and languishing off the
top-four pace.
And Tuchel did not hold back with his assessment of their latest setback on
the road, saying: "We are not tough enough to win these matches away. It was
the same story in Leeds, there we thought the problem was we didn't score in
the first 25 minutes and then they pushed us off-balance in two minutes with
two goals and we could not find any answers.
"Today, we scored so everything was okay but one set piece again, one sloppy
defending again, we were off-balance and we did not react to it. We were
lucky not to concede a third goal at the beginning of the second half. We
were not tough enough as a team to react or push it over the line for us.
"Soft defending. What stops that is pure mentality, stop it with defending
mentality. There is no superiority for the opponent, there is no need to
give shots away, just toughen up as a team and show a different mentality
"I don't like to talk about it normally because you cannot prove it with
data or tactical position but it is like this. Both goals are cheap, soft
goals and should not happen if you expect to win a match in the evening at
an away stadium."
'We need to show a different mentality'
Chelsea have been hampered by injuries and suspensions during August with
Ruben Loftus-Cheek the latest victim, forced to come off at half-time for
Mateo Kovacic, who has only just returned to training.
Reece James was also ill and missed the St Mary's trip while Conor Gallagher
was suspended after being sent off against Leicester on Saturday.
Chelsea's problems are giving Tuchel flashbacks to last season.
"It reminded me of Juventus last season," he said. "We played a fantastic
match at Stamford Bridge and, after that, we had Chilly (Ben Chilwell) off
for eight months and N'Golo Kante for three months.
"It was the same against Tottenham [earlier this month]. Our key player
[Kante] says goodbye for six weeks minimum and then it's red cards and Ruben
is off injured, and Kovacic is off injured for eight weeks, Reece James is
off with illness. It's key player after key player. With our demands and
ambition we have it's like that.
"If these key players are missing you need to show a different mentality.
It's not enough at the moment to win at Leeds and Southampton. We are humble
enough to accept we can lose football matches but it's too easy to push us
off track, too easy to win challenges, too easy to bully us.
"Yesterday, we had 16 players in training. I cannot dream about what will
happen if we have everybody back, I just have what we have on the training
pitch and this is not a lot at the moment."
Analysis: Tuchel under pressure as Chelsea
stutter
Sky Sports' Adam Bate:
Chelsea's season is going in the other direction right now. They were
seconds away from following up an opening weekend win over Everton with a
deserved victory against Tottenham but Harry Kane's late goal has proved the
prelude to a dramatic shift in mood.
After being well beaten at Leeds, Thomas Tuchel's side have now lost their
next away game too with the players facing accusations of being weak by
their own manager. "Just toughen up as a team and show a different
mentality," he said of the defeat at St Mary's.
Easier said than done, it seems. For much of Tuchel's time at Chelsea, his
team looked solid but no more. No clean sheets in four tells only part of
the tale. They look so open right now. The switch to a back four does not
seem to suit them and the injuries are mounting.
That is a short-term issue and the impending arrival of Wesley Fofana should
help too. But with the attack little better - only Raheem Sterling has found
the net in the last three games - and a gap to their rivals already opening
up, Tuchel is under some pressure now.
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