Thomas Tuchel has been a resounding success since replacing Frank Lampard as Chelsea manager this season. After a difficult start to the season, Lampard was sacked in January with German coach Tuchel replacing him in the Blues’ dugout. Ahead of the final match,
Thomas Tuchel said: “Yes and no. Yes in the clear sense that we want to have them in the final and don’t want to have any injuries, like we’ve had now with N’Golo and almost with Mason and Chilly [Ben Chilwell]. But you have always the risk in any match to have injuries,” the German admitted during his pre-match press conference. And no, clearly no, because if we were qualified [for top four], you can lose the energy. You can overthink it, in terms of who do we leave out, who do we rest. Suddenly you have this rest and, given you’ve never had a rest in the last weeks, you have to cope with a rest and you don’t know if he will catch the momentum again. Always you’re torn. If you really ask me, I prefer to keep on going I think, it’s an advantage to keep on going to the very end and then have the Champions League final after that, and to fight for it constantly and not to have to deal with a situation where you don’t fight, you don’t want to be injured, you don’t want to lose your rhythm, but who do we take out, who should start. It’s better now just to think about Aston Villa and hope for a bit of luck, and take all the risks that we can only take. There will be no players rested, no players on the bench. It was all-in against Leicester, and it is all-in against Aston Villa.”
