Antonio Rudiger sends message to Chelsea teammates following sloppy defensive form
Speaking to the club’s official website, Chelsea ace Antonio Rudiger has claimed that the Blues need to address their issue of conceding too many goals and need to improve their defensive form.
The centre-back proved crucial in the victory against Leeds United on the weekend. He won us two penalties on the day, with the latter coming in added time. However, the Blues needed the help of the spot-kicks to win after conceding twice for the third game in a row.
Chelsea have been solid defensively for the past 11 months. However, since defeating Juventus 4-0 in the Champions League, we have conceded 10 goals in five games.
The absence of Mateo Kovacic, Ben Chilwell, and N’Golo Kante certainly hurts, but Rudiger has now claimed that this defensive issue needs to be addressed, and he does not want to give any excuses.
‘In terms of mentality, we matched their [Leeds’] game, in terms of quality, no because the goals we conceded were too easy. These days we concede a lot of goals that are too easy and we have to address this. If you want to compete for trophies, you should not do that type of mistake.
‘We know we need to improve things as quickly as possible. We do silly mistakes. We punish ourselves and give away goals. It is not that the opponents are killing us or outplaying us. Obviously, we are missing players, this is clear, but I do not look for excuses.’
Nip it in the bud
Thomas Tuchel guided the West London club to the UEFA Champions League trophy on the back of a rock-hard defence last season. We had only conceded four times in the league until two weeks ago, courtesy of which we were picking up points week-after-week.
However, injuries have hit us hard. Chilwell is a huge miss as there is no able deputy for him. Marcos Alonso and Saul Niguez have played in that role since, but have not shown anything to instil any confidence in Tuchel or the supporters.
Kovacic and Kante are arguably two of our best central midfielders, given their lung-bursting energy. Jorginho and Ruben Loftus-Cheek have been decent, but the former has been playing in pain for a while now.
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Regardless, we need to stop conceding so many goals immediately. It is a blip in our form, but we, fortunately, picked up a result on the weekend. Some of the bigger teams shall punish us for our mistakes, courtesy of which we need to lose this habit as soon as possible.
When our first-team players start coming back into the squad from the sidelines, we can expect ourselves to be back at our best. Right now, the German needs to find out where the team is going wrong and do as much damage control as possible. If we are in the title race at the end of the January transfer window, Tuchel would know he has done a mighty fine job in the midst of an injury crisis.