Reguilon won’t be stumped by Blues Special diet
Tuchel: I’m loving Havertz hunger... he could have rested on laurels after winning Champions League
CRICKET fan Sergio Reguilon wants to hit
Chelsea for six again to kick-start another Premier League surge.
Reguilon jetted in from Spain with Gareth Bale a year ago today to sign for Spurs and made his debut 10 days later in the penalty shoot-out victory over the Blues in the Carabao Cup.
That win kick-started a run of form that saw Spurs go top of the table in November and again in December before falling away.
And he hopes they can do something similar this year without the post-christmas drop-off.
Reguilon (above) said: “I remember in the first half, I had too much energy and the first goal was a little mistake by me. But in the second half, I gave the assist to Coco [Erik Lamela] and after we won on penalties. It was fantastic.
“And we know that if we win this time, it would be an important victory.
“Chelsea are playing very good football, they are the Champions League winners.
Atmosphere
“They are doing a lot of good things and we know it will be difficult. But we are in our stadium, with our fans, our people and last year that did not happen.
“Football changes with the fans. You go to Crystal Palace and, with the fans, it all changes, with the atmosphere. You run more with fans. A lot of things change.
“Last season, we started very well, but in the end the team went down. We are trying this year so that the same does not happen.”
There have been plenty of changes for Reguilon in the last 12 months, not least with Nuno Espirito Santo replacing Jose Mourinho.
Although he knew what to expect from his new boss following Sevilla’s 1-0 Europa League quarter-final win against Nuno’s old Wolves side in August 2020.
Reguilon added: “I played against Matt
Doherty and I was joking with him about that match.
“It was so difficult because that team was very strong defensively, they were difficult, and the striker was proven in Raul
Jimenez.
“I remember that match like it was yesterday.
“Playing against a
Nuno team is difficult because you haven’t got space to play. When you have the ball, they are too compact, too aggressive.
“And with the ball, the transition, you have to counter-attack because they are so dangerous.
“Here, the team are working to be compact, a team which can defend well and after that transition as quickly as possible.
“We are working, but it’s not one day, one week, one month. We have to build something, something big.”
Reguilon’s adaptation to Spurs was helped by playing cricket with Dele Alli, Bale, Joe Hart and others in the gym.
Laughing, he said: “Sorry, but I don’t understand this sport. All the players watch it on TV and I was, like, ‘What’s that?’
“I knew baseball, but this? Three sticks there, what’s that?
“Also in the gym, they were playing and now, after months, it makes sense, finally.
“But for a year I didn’t understand this sport.” It is not just his cricket abilities for which Reguilon is ribbed, but the fact his girlfriend, Spanish influencer Marta Diaz, has far more social media followers than he does.
“It’s not a problem,” he added, laughing again. “I’m happy for her. But so many players make jokes about that.”
THOMAS TUCHEL has vowed he will not give Kai Havertz a minute’s peace until he has fulfilled every last drop of his sky-high potential.
Havertz, 22, had a fine end to last season, putting behind him a slow start to life at Chelsea following his £72million move from Bayer Leverkusen.
The young German capped it with the Blues’ winning goal in their Champions League Final victory over Manchester City.
This season, he has started where he left off in May and is playing with the kind of confidence that evaded him in his first few months at the club. And Blues boss Tuchel insisted: “The guy is so full of talent he will not have a relaxed second with me.
“Because if you have this amount of talent, you have to push
yourself to the absolute maximum – and nobody knows what the absolute maximum is yet for Kai.
“He has the body, he has the talent, he has the head, he has belief to play at the very top, he has everything.
“I found Kai very, very strong when he came back – I was very pleased with his attitude towards training and in the pre-season matches, and very early in the season.
“I have felt him to be very selfconfident after the end of the season, where he was decisive, of course very decisive, in the final of the Champions League.
“He did not lean back on that and take it as a given that he has made his impact and has his place now.
“He was fighting hard and I could feel a different attitude and a different confidence – also in how to use his body, his physicality in training.
“If he had a miss in training he took the next shot straight away with full belief. And they were little details where I could see, ‘OK, he is in a good place, he pushes himself
I feel a different attitude and confidence in training now... Kai wants to keep making an impact
and he wants to continue to get better and make another impact and another’.
“Because this is what we demand.
“I found him a little bit tired after the international break, he was also a little bit ill during the matches for Germany.
“But now he is in very good shape and has had a good impact and a good physical game against Zenit St
Petersburg when he came off the bench. Kai is superimportant for us.”
Havertz won’t get any peace from Tuchel, but the Blues chief hopes goalkeeper Edouard Mendy will get more than he has been.
Tuchel added: “I don’t like it much when he is in the spotlight.
“I like it more when he gets praise from us for one-and-a-half saves, and for being concentrated, maybe pushing the line up, clearing some situations as a sweeper.
“For the spectators in the stadium he should be more or less invisible – then I’m super-happy.
“Then I know we did not allow many chances.
“Once your goalkeeper is in too much of the spotlight, as he was in the last games, it’s not the most satisfying feeling for a coach.
“On the other hand it is satisfying, because we know that we can rely on him. Every top team needs a top goalkeeper, and we have one.”