Thomas Tuchel admits Chelsea are 'clearly not there' this season

Thomas Tuchel has admitted his anger at Chelsea's poor start to the new season following their surprise 1-0 loss to Dinamo Zagreb.

The Blues were beaten in their Champions League opener thanks to a first-half Mislav Orsic goal, failing to create too much from there on in.

Chelsea have now lost three times already this season, and speaking post-match in Croatia, Tuchel insisted his men have been way off the pace so far this campaign.

"We are clearly not there, where we need to be and where we can be. So it's on me, it's on us, we need to find solutions," he said.

"At the moment, everything is missing, [there is] too much to analyse. I'm a part of it. I am angry at myself, I am angry at our performance. I didn't see it coming. We need to be much better. We are not finished, we are not happy but I thought we were on a good way. I am surprised by this performance."

He added: "It's an underperformance from us, we have the same story as always.

"We have an OK start, we don't finish our half-chances, we don't feel it when the game is already there to put to bed in the first 15-20 minutes. Then we concede one counter-attack, which is far too easy, and from there we struggled."

Tuchel was then asked how many players were at the top of their game right now, to which he replied: "Not a lot at the moment.

"I don't know where this performance comes from. It's a lack of hunger, intensity, a lack of determination to win duels, to actually do things on the highest level. You cannot expect to win games, not in the Premier League or Champions League. We are not where we want to be."

Next up for Chelsea is a short journey to Fulham for Saturday's lunchtime kick-off.


Source : 90min