Chelsea coach
Tuchel rages against Premier League: “We let players play 90 minutes immediately after Covid infection”
“I’m really worried,” said Thomas Tuchel about the situation of his Chelsea FC after numerous corona illnesses and injuries
© Nick Potts / DPA
In the UK, numerous Premier League games have been canceled due to Covid-19 cases. Chelsea FC had to play even though many of the team’s players have only just recovered. Thomas Tuchel could hardly be reassured despite a victory.
The Omicron variant of the coronavirus is rampant in the UK, and it is hitting the Premier League as well. Many games were canceled on the famous “Boxing Day”. Not so the game of Thomas Tuchels FC Chelsea. In the 3-1 win over Aston Villa, he used several players who had just recovered. In TV interviews after the game, Tuchel aired his concerns about the health of the players. When asked about Romelu Lukaku’s “great performance”, Tuchel said: “Yes, he really helped today. But it’s not fair, he wasn’t necessarily ready, even if he really wanted to. We use the players, but we do don’t even know how things will go on with them. Nobody knows. “
Winger Callum Hudson-Odoi even had to run for over 90 minutes two days after recovering from corona. Tuchel brooded: “We let players play for 90 minutes immediately after infection. Maybe we made a big mistake to use the players after only one or two training sessions,” says Tuchel. “I’m very impressed with my players, but super worried. ”
Tuchel, Klopp and Rangnick are calling for five changes
Like his German colleagues Jürgen Klopp and Ralf Rangnick before, the coach of FC Chelsea demanded five substitutions in the Premier League after the game. “From my point of view, we absolutely need these five changes. I absolutely don’t understand why we don’t have them. That would help the prevention and health protection of the players so much,” said Tuchel.
Rangnick had already expressed almost the same wording earlier. “I think it would be a great help to have five options,” the 63-year-old said recently. The interim coach of the English soccer champions Manchester United reminded that this rule was introduced at the beginning of the corona pandemic. “A year and a half later we have a comparable situation and I see no reason why it shouldn’t be the same again,” said Rangnick. As far as he knows, the Premier League is the only major league in Europe that currently only allows three substitutions.
Jürgen Klopp from Liverpool FC had given consideration that almost every team had to cope with corona failures and Covid-19 diseases. The situation is not normal, but extraordinary. “And on that basis, I beg those with power to change something,” said the world coach.
Chelsea FC: Nine games in four weeks
The Premier League clubs only discussed the situation at a crisis meeting on the Monday before Christmas. He was not alone in wanting five changes, said Tuchel. “But we obviously don’t have a chance,” said the coach of the Champions League winner and addressed the leaders of the league association directly: “They let us play all the time, even if we have Covid. We have new injuries, and it does will not stop. People at the green table, in offices, make these decisions. ”
The 3-1 win at Aston Villa on Sunday evening was the eighth game for the third place in the table since the beginning of the month, one more game to come. It was “a really big victory”, according to Tuchel. “We are struggling with injuries, we are struggling with Corona. We play against teams that had postponed games and had a lot of time to prepare for these games. And we play one game after the other,” he complained. The Londoners have to play against Brighton & Hove Albion again on Wednesday. The German national players Timo Werner and Kai Havertz are still out due to Corona. On Boxing Day, Thiago Silva and N’Golo Kante also had to leave the pitch injured. In the Premier League, 15 games had to be canceled and postponed in the past few weeks due to the numerous corona cases.