Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel admitted that Aston Villa caused his “a lot of problems” on Saturday evening despite winning by three goals to nil. Lukaku’s clinical finishing was the biggest difference on a good day for the West London outfit, but after the final whistle Tuchel was adamant that his team were not comfortable winners, pointing out all of the areas in which Villa caused them issues.
Thomas Tuchel said: “It was absolutely not [a comfortable evening]. It was a strong Aston Villa side. They were well prepared, they looked very sharp from the start and very confident. They caused us a lot of problems, particularly in the first half. They’re dangerous from throw-ins, set-pieces and corners, and gave us many situations you have to defend. That’s not our favourite discipline, but we did what we had to do. The second half was better, we had more control. There were a lot of half chances that we didn’t take very well. We played with some of the guys in a new formation. We were not at our highest level. We had some early ball losses because they played very aggressive in the last line. If we had better first touches and better movement, perhaps we could have had more chances. But credit to them, they played a very good match. It was a super dangerous game for teams who have so many players out on international duty. It was a strange feeling before the match. I hoped the first goal could give us some more confidence, but it didn’t.”
Despite the difficulties Chelsea encountered against Villa, Tuchel called it the “perfect evening”, particularly for his in-form forward Lukaku.
Thomas Tuchel said: “He’s full of confidence and fully aware what he wants to do. He takes the last decisions and is absolutely confident of scoring, so he’s helped us a lot. We escaped with the perfect result, perfect evening for our striker.”
The result leaves Aston Villa with just one win from their opening four matches and sitting fourth in the Premier League table with four points.
