TUCH OF GENIUS
Boss uses GB cycling as inspiration to keep wheels on Blues great run
THOMAS TUCHEL will take a leaf out of cycling guru Sir Dave Brailsford’s book as he bids to prevent Chelsea’s unbeaten record from becoming a millstone round their necks.
The Blues boss is undefeated in 13 games since arriving at Stamford Bridge in January.
But as proud as he is of that achievement, ahead of today’s FA Cup quarter-final with Sheffield United he has been keen to stress to his players that a single, solitary victory is all that matters rather than anything that has gone before it.
Tuchel said: “Many years ago here in London, I spoke to Sir Dave Brailsford [then leader of Team Sky cycling team] who had won the Tour de France a few times.
“And he was very, very concerned about not wanting to enter a state of mind where you fear the loss of a record more than the hunger and adventure of winning the next race.
“I don’t want to enter this, either, so the refocus is always part of the process.
“If we look too much at what we have achieved, that ‘we protect this, what we have’… this is already in the past. If it’s 13, 14, 15 or whatever we can make it, it doesn’t matter.
“It matters because it’s natural that it sometimes affects you and maybe you step back and want to protect it, and you maybe enter the next game thinking, ‘Let’s not ruin this’.
But I always want us to be brave and to refocus, to go for the next win and not to avoid the loss that kills our record. The record is already history.
Demand
“The next game with Sheffield United is one game – and is the most important one.
“What do we have to do in the first minute and the fifth minute and the 90th minute? What are we good at, what do we demand of ourselves?
“Not in general that we demand that we win.
“No, we demand that in the first minute we start like this and play like this and we have this kind of intensity and this kind of attitude and this kind of team spirit and from there on we go. And then I demand the maximum from myself and the team and everybody, then we will see. Because if we have all this then it is possible to have big records.
“But I hope we don’t enter situations where we are more afraid of losing the record than of winning the next game.”
The focus is now on the FA Cup and not what may or may not happen in the Premier League and Champions League in the coming weeks. He added: “The point is that I don’t place it in terms of importance.
“The most important thing is we compete for every competition we play in and that is what it is about at Chelsea.
“We play for the top place. We play Champions League, we play to win every game and if we play the Cup, we play to win every game and compete to the maximum.
“The challenge, first of all, the first step is to admit that we challenge for every competition we play in because this is Chelsea.
“Then there are no preferences.”