Tuchel remarkably blames Stamford Bridge pitch for Chelsea woes and claims new low in his tenure

Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel took aim at the Stamford Bridge pitch for his side’s recent woes, including the 4-2 defeat to Arsenal.

The Blues won at Wembley on Sunday to reach the FA Cup final, but that papered over the cracks of a poor run of form at home. In fact, Wednesday’s loss to the Gunners was their third successive home defeat for the first time in 28 years.

Chelsea have also conceded 11 goals in that run. What’s more, Arsenal’s four goals came after they had only scored one in their previous three games.

Speaking in an interview with Sky Sports, Tuchel insisted that “dramatic” and “completely individual mistakes” cost the Blues in their latest London derby.

Cesar Azpilicueta scored to make it 2-2 before half time in the thrilling contest. However, he was at fault for a misplaced pass which led to Eddie Nketiah’s second goal. The Spaniard also conceded a penalty which Bukayo Saka won and scored.

Andreas Christensen was also in the spotlight. It was his misplaced back-pass which Nketiah stole in on to open the scoring for Arsenal early on.

And despite blaming individual mistakes, Tuchel changed his tune in his post-match press conference to the wider media.

He said: “To say that the pitch is difficult to play here maybe sounds like an excuse but it is a very, very difficult pitch that we have here.

“It’s not to our favour and the ball bounces very, very awkwardly in front of Andreas when he wants to play this ball.”

Whatever the source of Chelsea’s woes, Tuchel spared no sympathy for his side’s performance. He claimed that he cannot remember such mistakes in his time in charge.

Speaking to Sky, he added: “We scored five goals and lost 4-2, that’s easy. Three own goals and two regular goals for us and one for Arsenal and that makes it 4-2.

“I don’t know if it’s a defensive lack of conviction. If we have ball possession we invite these kind of mistakes for the opponent to score.

“I cannot remember any mistake in our favour of this calibre, of this quality. We don’t get these goals, we give these goals away here in consecutive games and you cannot win Premier League matches.”

Tuchel continues Chelsea tirade

Chelsea had actually won their past three games  – one of which was academic – coming into the clash with Arsenal.

They beat Southampton 6-0 away from home and then beat Real Madrid in the Champions League quarter-final second leg. But, Madrid won 5-4 on aggregate.

Indeed, their 3-1 win at Stamford Bridge helped. That result came after Brentford won 4-1 there.

Asked if the Arsenal result was surprising amid his side’s good recent form, Tuchel said: “Yeah and then we decided to give a goal away for absolutely nothing.

“We did the same against Real Madrid and Brentford and it cost us Champions League.”

Asked how he will respond this time, he added: “”I don’t know, actually I don’t know.”

Chelsea return to action against West Ham – again at Stamford Bridge – on Sunday.