Tuchel insists Blues revival still on track

FINAL LOSS WAS JUST UNLUCKY SAYS BOSS

THOMAS TUCHEL insists teams are “jealous” of Chelsea’s journey this year, even as it starts to unravel.

But after this latest Wembley disappointment, they really do need to learn how to finish things off properly if they are to get to where their owner Roman Abramovich wants them to be.

Chelsea have to pick themselves up for the three remaining games of a season which last week seemed to offer them miracles but now threaten to contain just “what-might -have-beens”.

Revenge against Leicester in the Premier League tomorrow will not now be enough on its own to secure a top-four spot, so in all probability Aston Villa will have to be dispatched on the final day of the season.

Then there is the small matter of the Champions League final against Manchester City in Porto in 12 days’ time.

All of which seemed a far cry away when Tuchel took over in January.

“If you have a group that arrives in the final, a Champions League final and arrives from ninth place to be in the race for the top four, there’s no reason to doubt that we are not strong enough to handle the situation,” he said.

“But that’s the challenge. Is it easy? No. But it’s fun because this is what it is all about. Don’t forget we have enough leaders and this is a strong group who deserved very much to be in the final because we had a huge semi-final and this group, for me, deserved to win the final.

“We can absolutely accept that we didn’t win and that we can improve in some moments of the game.

“But it was enough to win the game and we were simply unlucky.

Remember, there are a lot of teams out there who are jealous of our situation I can tell you.”

Simply unlucky? Tuchel’s problem at the moment is that he cannot just rely on keeping his sheets cleaner than clean.

Forget the Edouard Mendy or Kepa Arrizabalaga debate – Daz Automatic could not have prevented Youri Tielemans from leaving such an elegant stain on Chelsea’s afternoon at Wembley.

The 63rd-minute strike meant Chelsea had 27 minutes to get a goal of their own. From where, though?

Their joint top scorer Tammy Abraham had not even made it onto Wembley’s extended bench.

Not that his presence would been any guarantee of goals – you only need to have found the net six times in the Premier League this season to be at the top of the Chelsea tree.

Occasional defender Kurt Zouma is only one behind that figure. Timo Werner, who could not stop scoring for Leipzig and Germany, has scraped six goals this term and his recent lack of confidence has increased the pressure on Kai Havertz, Hakim Ziyech, Christian Pulisic and Mason Mount to compensate – and against Leicester they were all just off.

Admittedly, Kasper Schmeichel made two great saves to deny Ben Chilwell and Mount but that happens in football, and the former was agonising millimetres away from being caught in VAR’s clutches right at the end.

All the while Chelsea lack the weapon to kill off the game with a barrage of blows, they are always liable to succumb to a single ruthless sniper’s bullet such as Tielemans’.