Tuchel slams players and pitch as Azpilicueta confronts own fans

Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel has lashed out at his faltering stars after another error-filled performance condemned Chelsea to a third consecutive defeat at Stamford Bridge.

Chelsea have conceded 11 goals in that period and a furious Tuchel said that he understood the reaction of the disgruntled fan who was involved in an angry altercation with the captain, César Azpilicueta, after the final whistle of their 4-2 defeat by their London rivals Arsenal.

Azpilicueta was seen having a heated exchange with a supporter after the defender’s foul led to Bukayo Saka’s penalty that wrapped up Arsenal’s victory. “I saw it but also, honestly, I can understand the fan,” Tuchel said.

The Chelsea manager blamed the Stamford Bridge pitch for the Andreas Christensen error that led to Eddie Nketiah’s opening goal but urged his players to “face reality” and cut out the mistakes.

“It is impossible to win football matches when you do this amount of mistakes of this calibre,” Tuchel said. “It is simply impossible. I don’t see it in any other matches. But I see it in consecutive matches of our games and it has to stop. We need to have the tactics right, which is doubtful I had this right.

You need team selection right, also doubtful if I had this right. And then it’s a game for the players and they get the full praise when they do it like they did the last three matches and they have to face reality.

“It is a level of mistakes and amount of mistakes in consecutive games here at home which is impossible on this kind of level. You don’t see this. It is simply impossible but we are doing this at the moment and you cannot win football games like this.”

Chelsea equalised twice through Timo Werner and Azpilicueta after Nketiah and Emile Smith Rowe had put Mikel Arteta’s team in the lead. Nketiah scored his first Premier League goals of the season after benefiting from Christensen’s weak pass back to the goalkeeper, Édouard Mendy.

“To say the pitch is difficult to play here, it sounds maybe like an excuse but it is a very difficult pitch we have here,” Tuchel said. “It is not to our favour and the ball bounces very, very awkwardly when the ball bounces to Andreas.”

Tuchel accused his team of gifting Arsenal the second-half goals that were finished by Nketiah and Saka. Saka’s was a stoppage-time penalty and his first since missing the crucial spot kick for England in the European Championship final.

“It is an unbelievable goal,” Tuchel said. “It’s from our ball possession. There is no tactics behind, we have three ball losses in ten seconds, and then we do a foul when there is not the slightest danger. We foul a person that is a penalty and rob ourselves of the chance to have six minutes for the equaliser. What do you want me to analyse? There is nothing to analyse.”

Arteta said he had planned to give the penalty kick to Gabriel Martinelli but realised he could not take it away from Saka. “When I saw Bukayo was going to take it, my first thought was to him back in the summer,” he said. “For him to have the courage to take the penalty, it took great character and courage.”