Chelsea head-coach Thomas Tuchel appeared to be more pleased with Chelsea's first half performance in comparison to the second half in the Blues 2-0 win over Newcastle, but already feels that he has identified both the negatives and the positives from the game.
Chelsea defeated Newcastle United 2-0 at Stamford Bridge to move into the champions league qualification places thanks to goals from Timo Werner and Olivier Giroud in the first half.
This was in stark contrast to the second half performance by Chelsea where Newcastle fought back hard and applied more pressure for Chelsea to maintain their two goal lead.
'I enjoyed the first half' Tuchel said. 'We played with a lot of courage and had a lot of touches in their box and also had a lot of shots. We managed to keep Newcastle away from our own box and did not allow them chances of even half-chances so I liked this a lot.'
'During the whole game, we lacked precision in the final decision and we also lacked decision making in the box. We need to be more deadly, precise and more decisive and create even more chances from our half-chances.'
'During the second half in the first three or four minutes pretty much painted the picture for that half. Suddenly we started to give the ball away, gave away two shots in the space of two minutes, started to lose duels and suddenly started to concede corners and I felt that we had something to lose.'
'We didn't play enough balls forward nor did we open up or keep the advantage to apply our game in our opponents half . The counter attacks we had in the second half were neither precise nor clinical enough in scoring a third goal in order to kill of the game.'
Tuchel not distracted by top four return but says there's still work to do
'We will not stop pushing as there is no other way. We knew that we had the opportunity of being in the top four if we won today but I tell everyone that there is still a long way to go, as there are lots of teams close to us. We still have lots of games to play, we still have big teams to face and there are lots of points to be played for.'
'It is now important for me that we take two days off in order to recover both physically and mentally and then prepare for our game against Southampton, as this game will also be challenging. This is our position at this current moment, but what matters more is our position at the end of the season.'
'Before I was appointed head-coach we were lots of points behind Liverpool with lots to teams between us and fourth spot. So it was very clear that it was not only in our own hands, but we had to rely on results on other pitches going our way in order to close the gap. This was the situation which we began from and from there onwards we did not spend one minute thinking about other teams or the other pitches.'
'Instead we spent every other minute with the team to focus on ourselves, to prepare for big matches as we are playing in the toughest league. It often feels like a reward looking at our current league position but we cannot be distracted by this. From Thursday onwards our only focus will be on Southampton. We have worked hard for this momentum, my players have worked very hard to win all of these games consecutively and we will keep going.'
Tuchel feels Werner's goal will do massive wonders for his confidence
'For a striker the last percentage of both confidence and come from scoring goals, nothing else. But Timo worked hard for that. In that last game I felt that he was very decisive with both the assist and winning the penalty or us. Today again he delivered an assist and a goal for us. This is very important to him. I am very happy as he has put in a lot of work and effort off the ball. I personally thought it was a big relief and saw this coming.'
Thomas Confirmed he was happy with tackle which saw Tammy Abraham come off early but has no further news on the injury
'There is not an update which I am able to provide you with. It is a huge concern and a big worry for us as we had to take him off early due to him receiving a hard tackle. We are worried however there is no update on this so far.'
'We thought that this was as a result of a reckless tackle. Tammy played the ball, but for myself the defender takes a big risk of injuring an opponent because for me this is a foul , as it's reckless. However, I am not one to criticise, it was just something which I wanted to discuss with the fourth official.'
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