Chelsea have continued their recovery under new manager Thomas Tuchel with a 2-1 win over strugglers Sheffield Shield in a Premier League match on Sunday. With the win, Chelsea have now zoomed to fifth spot in the standings and they are now just a single point away from fourth-placed Liverpool FC with the race for the Champions League spot heating up.
Mason Mount found the opener for the Blues in the 43rd minute thanks to a perfect cut-back from Timo Werner. However, that was cancelled out when defender Antonio Rudiger ended up tapping the ball into his own net after a judgment of error in the 55th minute and three minutes later, Jorginho converted a spot-kick with the visitors holding onto the slim one-goal lead for their third straight league win in a row
Tuchel again pushed N’Golo Kante and Hakim Ziyech to the bench and left out Thiago Silva, Kai Havertz and Christian Pulisic from the squad. The German explained why Pulisic and Silva missed the win.
“Christian has some family issues to resolve and family is always first so we decided to give him a rest for this game,” Tuchel said after the match. “With Thiago, we are fighting for him every day but he will be for sure out for the FA Cup so it will take time. It will be several days but we have set the goal, I would like him back for maybe Southampton, that’s realistic but also ambitious. I know Thiago, he will do everything to be ready as soon as possible but it is a muscle injury so you cannot take any risk.”
Tuchel was expectedly happy with Chelsea’s run since he took over from Frank Lampard who was sacked last month.
“The type of football is physical and tougher and there is a lot of quality and during matches it never stops,” Tuchel told Sky Sports. “You feel absolute spirit to give everything in every match it brings out the best in every player and it’s a pleasure to coach every game because this is what we love and what I love and so far things are going well and we are happy.”