Chelsea’s defeat to Arsenal in midweek was a little unexpected, but Thomas Tuchel had some reasons for why the Blues didn’t perform.
In his press conference today, he discussed the central midfield partnership from that game, which saw Billy Gilmour line up alongside Jorginho with Mateo Kovacic out injured and N’Golo Kante rested.
Jorginho made a bad mistake to allow Arsenal to score, while Gilmour wasn’t able to shine in his usual way as the Gunners then sat deep.
Thomas Tuchel:
“When we missed N'Golo and Mateo, we lacked a lot of quality, energy and experience. Billy did a huge job in huge games but it's not fair to compare him to these players because they have more expeerience.”
[via @Football_LDN]
— Talk Chelsea (@talkchelsea) May 14, 2021
Tuchel admitted that without that pair, the midfield “lacked a lot of quality, energy and experience.”
He was at pains to praise Gilmour, and show it was no criticism of him, but it’s clear that he thought the team would have been better off with one of the two absentees playing.
The good news is that both are available for tomorrow’s FA Cup final. We expect a totally different performance with them on the pitch.
Jorghinio is not good enough in the middle, think he’s cost us the last 2 games.