Following Monday night’s 2-0 win over Newcastle United at Stamford Bridge, Christensen has revealed that the Blues being comfortable in possession is the message that Tuchel has sent them in an attempt to solve their defensive troubles.
Andreas Christensen said: “I have played four games in a row now and it has been a while since I’ve done that. All the manager says is just be comfortable. If you don’t need to play the ball, you don’t have to. Wait for someone to come and take the ball, don’t take last-second decisions, know what you’re going to do and make it happen. He just said to us to be comfortable and believe in ourselves. I have played in the middle of the three before and I’m quite comfortable there. At the moment, when we are playing good football and getting wins, it is helping us so we don’t have to do too much to change it.”
Following his move from RB Leipzig last summer, the Germany international has struggled to live up to expectations. However, Werner has shown signs of life in his last two games, getting himself back amongst the goals and proving to be a nuisance for opposition defenders. The secret to that has been Tuchel finding his best position, a role which has been described by the Blues boss as the “left ten.” After the win over Newcastle,
Thomas Tuchel, discussing Werner’s best role, said: “We know he likes to drift out a little bit to the wing, between the full-back and centre-back. So we try to bring him into these positions he likes to play next to a guy who is a reference in the middle like Tammy [Abraham] and Oli [Giroud]. We wanted to escape the pressure in the half positions today so we played Mason on the right and Marcos (Alonso) more inside to keep Timo stay in a high position and use his speed. It worked well in the first half, the second half lacked precision.”
