Any Port in a Blues storm
Tuchel hoping off day won’t spark Champs League crisis
IT was described by Thomas Tuchel as the “the day where everything went wrong”.
Now the pressure is on for the first time to make as much right again as possible, before Chelsea’s dreams for the season start to unravel.
After your team has gone unbeaten for 15 matches, one horrendous off-day is not going to be enough to blow you out of the race for the top four.
But a repeat against Porto on Wednesday could be bad enough to spell the end of Chelsea’s outside hopes of landing another Champions League for owner Roman Abramovich.
Tuchel told a tale of woe afterwards and said: “This was the day where everything went wrong that could go wrong.
“We have the red card, we have a half-time substitution with injury.
“And then, in the second half, every shot is a goal.
“Then you cannot score, so you got pretty, pretty quick the feeling that OK, this is not the day where we can turn things around.” But there are lessons that simply have to be learned.
Rushing Thiago Silva back from injury for this sort of high-intensity physical battle was a mistake which probably will not be repeated.
Having courted a red card after just five minutes with a foul on Matheus Pereira, his second lunge at the Brazilian before the half-hour mark left referee
David Coote with no option but to send him off.
Two minutes later, Christian Pulisic gave Chelsea the lead but the game was turned on its head, as the hosts seemed to be already in the dressing room as first-half injury time played out.
The centre-backs stood still as keeper Sam Johnstone launched a huge clearance into the penalty area and Pereira applied a neat finish.
And they were just as static as the same player added the second moments later, after a sloppy pass from Jorginho.
Pulisic ran 10 yards onto the pitch for the second half, then promptly turned around and went back down the tunnel with a hamstring injury. He has to be a doubt for Wednesday.
Chelsea also learned that his replacement, Mason Mount, cannot always be the answer.
Because in their high wing-backed determination to get back into the game, the Blues kept getting picked off by the Baggies.
Callum Robinson has only ever scored five Premier League goals – all of them against Chelsea. Saturday’s two came either side of a welldeserved effort from Mbaye Diagne.
Mount did pull one goal back to make it 4-2 for a while but Tuchel added: “Our individual defending was simply not on the level that we are used to from our guys.”