Tuchel blasts Chelsea display with two cutting remarks before snapping at interviewer’s comment

Thomas Tuchel branded Chelsea’s first half display against Real Madrid as “one of the worst” he’s seen thus far, and claimed they could get “hammered” at the Bernabeu.

Chelsea gave themselves a mountain to climb after falling to a 3-1 defeat in the first leg of their Champions League quarter final clash with Real Madrid. Karim Benzema notched his second successive hattrick in the competition after breaking PSG’s hearts in the prior round.

His first two goals came via glorious headed efforts, though the third owed much to surprising Chelsea blunders.

Edouard Mendy and Antonio Rudiger both failed to adequately deal with an aimless ball up field. A poor pass from Mendy was compounded by a weak challenge from Rudiger to allow Benzema to slot home into the empty net.

Kai Havertz had pulled one back prior to Benzema’s third, though taking a 3-1 deficit to the Bernabeu is an unenviable task.

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Speaking to BT Sport after the match, Tuchel fumed: “It is a heavy loss. It was one of the worst first halves that I saw from us here at Stamford Bridge.

“Individually and as a team it was by far not enough. It was far from our standards and then you lose games.

“Passing, where we passed, how we passed when we passed, when we attacked, the ball possession game… first half was so from any standards that we set ourselves that we cannot complain when we lose.

“We had 16 shots in the second half. You can always come back and win it but when you kill the game by yourself after 45 minutes it is harder and harder.”

Tuchel snaps at interviewer

BT interviewer Des Kelly then claimed Tuchel looked “downcast”.

That comment came when Kelly was suggesting the tie is far from over with Chelsea still to go to the Bernabeu for the second leg.

But Tuchel took umbrage with the comment when questioning whether he should instead be happy or smiling after witnessing one of Chelsea’s worst displays in his tenure.

The visibly rattled German then snapped back: “No, we don’t have to go to Madrid. We have to go Southampton (their Premier League fixture on Saturday) and it is very important to process this.

“It is crucial that we go to Southampton. If we keep playing like this we will lose at Southampton and then we will get hammered at Bernabeu.”

The defeat marked just the second time Chelsea have lost back-to-back home games under Tuchel after losing 4-1 to Brentford last weekend.

It also marked the first time Chelsea had conceded three or more goals in successive home matches since October 2012.