Chelsea recorded their second loss of the season following their 2-1 defeat to Southampton on Tuesday night at the Saint Mary’s Stadium.
Raheem Sterling gave Chelsea the lead in the 23rd minute after receiving a pass from Mason Mount inside the box. Southampton equalized five minutes later after Romeo Lavia pounced on a weak clearance from Cesar Azpilicueta. His audacious strike was too strong for Eduoad Mendy to keep out.
The host put pressure on Chelsea and another poor defensive display saw Adam Armstrong extend Southaptom lead before the break.
Thomas Tuchel’s side was lucky not to concede again after Marc Cucurella blocked another shot from Mohamed Elyounoussi. The defeat means Chelsea has 7 points from possible 15 points in their five Premier League games.
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However, Thomas Tuchel was not happy with the performance of his team, especially with his defense.
What did Thomas Tuchel say?
“Exactly. Soft, soft, soft defending. What stops l that? Pure mentality. Stop it by pure mentality. Stop it with defending mentality. There is no superiority for the opponent. There is no need to give shots away, there is no need. Just toughen up as a team and show a different mentality. It’s my assessment today. I don’t like to talk about it normally because you can’t prove it with data, the body positioning, tactical position in the field, or whatever,” Thomas Tuchel told reporters after the game.
“But it’s like this. Both goals are cheap goals, soft goals, and should not happen if you expect to win a Premier League match in the evening at an away stadium. We need to be tough than that.”
The German thinks Chelsea’s problem is not attacking but insisted that is bore than their poor defending display.
Tuchel added: “This is totally the wrong question to ask today for the attack. It’s defending, these goals have nothing to do with the attack. We scored, we had chances enough, we can have a clean sheet, we can stay at 1-1.
“We are not tough enough as a team. It’s not a question of striker, no striker, or what we have upfront. It’s the wrong question for me at the moment. Raheem [Sterling] is just one player, and as a team, we are not strong enough at the moment. It’s the wrong question.”
He continued: “I don’t have the answer to every question now so quickly after the match. But obviously, we are not tough enough to win these matches at the moment, away. It’s a bit the same story as in Leeds.
“In Leeds, we thought the problem was that we did not score in the first 20, 25 minutes. They put us off balance with two goals in two minutes, and we could not find answers.
“Today we scored, so we thought everything was okay, but one set piece again, one sloppy defending again, and we are off balance. And today, we did not react to it; we were lucky not to concede the third goal. We were not tough enough as a team to react or to push it over the line for us.”
Chelsea’s next Premier League game is against West Ham on Saturday.
