Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel hesitant to praise Romelu Lukaku despite two goals vs Wolves
According to football.london, Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel was clearly hesitant to praise Romelu Lukaku after his brace in a 2-2 draw against Wolverhampton Wanderers.
He admitted to the press that the draw felt like a loss. It’s excruciating to be up by two goals in the second half and then concede two goals. The manager believed his team did not follow his instructions and lost focus several times during the game.
“Then we tried to respond to it and change the structure. I don’t know if that was the right decision for me, I need to watch it back. It’s a lack of execution of the match plan throughout the whole half, and we get punished for it. If it’s fair or not is not worth discussing.”
Tuchel didn’t want to speak much about Lukaku’s performance as he thinks it was not the right time to talk about Individual performance.
“Yeah, but guys. Okay, good performance, but this is for sure not the moment to talk about individual performances and praise players. We do this as a team, and we lost crucial points. This is not the moment to praise individuals.”
What can Chelsea learn from the game?
Tuchel used a 5-3-2 system to launch an offensive Chelsea team against Wolves at Stamford Bridge. The gaffer believes that they were aware of the dangers of fielding this formation and that everyone had a responsibility to play in ensuring that everyone stayed in their assigned positions by being more disciplined.
However, there were times when this did not happen, and we were ambushed by Wolves players who played like they had nothing to lose. We were callous in position and, at times, plain unlucky. But Lukaku’s brace, which included a penalty, still put us in a strong position before we completely fluffed our lines and drew 2-2.
Lukaku has been under fire a lot this season, especially since the start of 2022. The Belgian has failed to cement his position as a starter and has often disappointed when it comes to scoring goals, especially in big games.
Much debate before the game against Wolves was around Lukaku and if he starts against Bruno Lage’s side. The ex-Inter Milan striker bagged a quick brace before the hour mark and put Chelsea in a strong position to win.
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It is hard to blame Lukaku for the draw and criticism should be pointed toward our defence for that. With Chelsea more or less favourites to make the top four, it wasn’t such a big setback for Tuchel to completely ignore Lukaku’s performance.
A few words of genuine praise could have done him a world of good but Tuchel surprisingly went out of his way to not praise him. Could there be something brewing behind the scenes? That is something we may never know. But surely, fans would have appreciated it if Tuchel would have offered some motivating and encouraging words to the big Belgian publicly in the presser.