Tuchel makes ‘urgent appeal’ for new signings after tearing into sorry Chelsea stars

Thomas Tuchel questioned the commitment of Chelsea’s players and admitted that they may not be ready for the start of the Premier League season after being thumped 4-0 by Arsenal in the final game of their United States pre-season tour.

The German head coach, 48, added that he was concerned about Chelsea’s ability to score and said he had been proven right about the need for new signings, describing it as an “urgent appeal” for a “huge amount of quality players”.

A dreadful night in Orlando capped off a testing tour for Tuchel in which his team won only once and failed to keep a single clean sheet.

“We were absolutely not competitive,” Tuchel said. “The worrying part is the level of commitment, physically and mentally, for this match was not the same. It was far higher for Arsenal than us.

“I don’t know if I ever lost a match in pre-season 4-0. I can’t remember not winning two matches in a row in pre-season. I’m a huge fan of a strong pre-season in everything: atmosphere, feeling, performance, belief.

“I am superstitious but not in a way that I say bad pre-season has to mean a bad season. That makes no sense to me. I am in it, a part of it, and need to find solutions.

“We fly home now and we have 1½ days only. On Tuesday we need to present solutions, we need to present actions. Me and the coaching staff, together with the team, need to step up and find a way through this because it hurts at the moment.”

Chelsea have signed the forward Raheem Sterling and the centre-back Kalidou Koulibaly but Tuchel wants at least two more defenders and is also concerned about his goalscoring options.

“It’s the same players,” he said, “so why should anything change? We will see, hopefully, development, but at the moment we have the same issues because we have the same players.

“Given our last two weeks, our game today, we should not mention the two teams in front of us [Manchester City and Liverpool]. We got absolutely beaten by a team that does not play Champions League football next season and finished behind us. But at the moment they seem far ahead of us.”

Koulibaly made his first appearance for Chelsea as a 72nd-minute substitute, when Arsenal already led through goals from Gabriel Jesus, Martin Odegaard and Bukayo Saka. Sambi Lokonga added a fourth late on.

Koulibaly has filled one of the vacant positions in central defence left by Andreas Christensen and Antonio Rüdiger, who departed this summer after their contracts expired. Tuchel wants at least two more defenders, with Chelsea hoping to finalise a deal for Sevilla’s Jules Koundé.

Saka added to goals from Jesus and Odegaard before Lokonga scored Arsenal’s fourth.

Unfortunately, it proved my point, and the last week proves my point,” Tuchel said. “I would prefer to not be right and I did everything to prove myself wrong, but at the moment I feel I was right when I look at the last season and at the parts of the game where we struggled and how we struggled.

“We got sanctioned [after the invasion of Ukraine, because of their former owner’s links to Russia] and players left us, we know that some players are trying to leave us, and this is where it is. We had an urgent appeal for quality players and a huge amount of quality players. We’ve got two quality players [in during the transfer window] — that is no doubt — but we are not competitive like this and unfortunately, we could see it today.”

Chelsea travelled back to London on Sunday night after completing the fourth leg of their tour to the US, which began two weeks ago in Los Angeles and concluded in Orlando after games in Las Vegas and Charlotte.

Tuchel has repeatedly commented on the difficulty of travelling between time zones and the humidity of training.

“It was long, it was long for sure,” Tuchel said. “We could feel the energy level drop after Las Vegas and after the Charlotte game because of the amount of travelling, very humid and very hot temperature. It made it tough because it’s now been two weeks on the road.

“It’s also a point but it’s a little point or explanation why we did not look fresh. I did not expect it today. I thought we lowered a little bit the intensity in training the last days, but not in a way where we could expect fresh legs. So that was not the biggest surprise, just the difference between tired and playing like this.”

I should start by saying I normally never judge how a season will go for a club by how they perform in pre-season. During about 20 years as a pro, these games were meant purely to get you fit for the first league game. So in that respect, Chelsea’s 4-0 drubbing by Arsenal really counts for nothing.

But the reasons I believe prompted Thomas Tuchel’s incendiary comments towards his players make me very worried for Chelsea.

The head coach was right in that his side showed a real lack of commitment, desire and hunger against a spirited Arsenal team who were terrific. Chelsea never got close to the Arsenal players, and that lack of intensity is what has troubled Tuchel.

The squad has plenty of players who know they won’t have a chance of first-team football this season. And then there are players such as César Azpilicueta, Marcus Alonso, Hakim Ziyech and Timo Werner who are uncertain about whether they even want to be there.

Chelsea as a club are in transition but Tuchel knows that just playing OK is not enough. He demands a certain standard and because he believes he is a top coach, he is not afraid to let his feelings be known — even to the new owners.

The German has made it very clear that he wants new signings — at least two more defenders — and that he wants them now. This latest post-match outburst may grate with Todd Boehly, the co-owner, and his consortium, but the very best managers are demanding.

Tuchel knows that if Chelsea don’t make the top four this season he will be out of a job. The pressure is so intense at the top that two of the managers of the “big six” clubs are always in danger of the sack.

My problem with Tuchel is that I can never work out what he thinks is his best team. He is now worrying about what his strongest XI is. That’s a bad place to be and he — and his players — should be concerned