Thomas Tuchel’s Chelsea were handed their first loss after going unbeaten since the German’s appointment, in a humiliating 5-2 defeat by relegation threatened West Brom.
‘We were rusty, we were sloppy in the build-up in our own half, and we made many, many unforced errors,’ said Tuchel
‘We didn’t adapt our positions under pressure,’ he added. ‘There were critical ball-losses in our own half and that led in the end to a red card, and that cost us the game.’When it was 11 against 11, I wasn’t super-happy but that was OK. I didn’t expect too much after the international break and the early kick-off.
‘And I thought if it takes us a while I accept it. But we were still sloppy on counter-attacks and missed a lot of opportunities to finish this game early.
‘And the second story was that we were not good enough when we were one man down. There is absolutely no need to concede five goals with our quality. But our defending was not of the quality it should be.
‘It is my responsibility. It is hard to accept but there is no other solution than to accept it and to move forward.’
Thiago Silva was sent off within 30 minutes to add to the woes of the Blues, and the Baggies were clinical on the counter attack to punish Chelsea’s sloppy defending. Moreover, their attack was not as good as it could have been either, with Timo Werner still lacking confidence in his abilities.
The Chelsea boss insisted that it is a wake up call and that the performances will surely improve in the Champions League quarter final against Porto, and the Stamford Bridge faithful will be hoping for nothing less than that.
