Thomas Tuchel names the ‘key player’ that ‘nobody doubts’

  It was a good Boxing Day for Thomas Tuchel and his Chelsea side yesterday as they took all three points at Aston Villa. It wasn’t qu...

 

It was a good Boxing Day for Thomas Tuchel and his Chelsea side yesterday as they took all three points at Aston Villa. It wasn’t quite so comfortable as the scoreline suggests in the end but they did the job and still managed to dominate the game.

It needed a half time substitution bringing Romelu Lukaku onto the pitch for Chelsea to take a stronghold and become a real threat in attack, which they had failed to do in the first half. Lukaku came on, scored a goal to put Chelsea in front, and then won a penalty after a bursting and strong run into the penalty area making him unplayable at times.

Tuchel has been full of praise for his striker after the game calling him a ‘key player’ and claiming that there have never been any doubts about him from those at the club. ‘There’s no doubt that he’s super important,” Tuchel said after the game as reported by the Chelsea website .

“Every player is super important but Romelu will be a key player, nobody doubts that, but last time he started for us was in October and not because of quality or because we have any doubts that we are better without him starting.

“It’s not the case. He was simply unlucky to get injured and after injury, while he was struggling to come back he caught Covid so he had again 10 days out and then suffered from symptoms.

 Now we put him on the pitch for 45 minutes, which was more than the fitness and medical department recommended for him, but we thought we can take the risk and be more offensive with him, and I’m happy of course that it went well for today. Let’s see now how the reaction is and how he adapts from here.”