Thomas Tuchel
Thomas Tuchel says he trusts Anthony Taylor to referee Chelsea games despite more than 80,000 supporters signing a petition demanding the Premier League do not put him in charge of the Blues’ top-flight fixtures.
Thomas Tuchel said: “I trust in the referees and I trust in Anthony Taylor that he will try to have his best performance tomorrow. We cannot – here at Cobham and at the club – get lost in ideas that there is actually something behind it. We have to make ourselves free from this and do what we need to do to win this match. Do we need a top referee? Yes. Do we need good decisions from VAR or none at all? Yes. Do we need a little bit of luck? Yes, and hopefully we can turn things around with Anthony Taylor.”
Chelsea will be without three key players for the west London derby. Antonio Rudiger is ruled out with a back problem sustained on international duty while Thiago Silva isn’t available having only returned from Brazil yesterday afternoon. Christian Pulisic is also not yet ready to return from his ankle injury. Hakim Ziyech is also a doubt for the contest as the 28-year-old has missed Chelsea’s last two training sessions with what Tuchel said was a headache. One member of the frontline who will likely start, though, is Timo Werner. The German forward struck against Southampton before the international break and was also twice on target for his country in a 4-0 victory over North Macedonia on Monday. And Tuchel is keen to harness that goalscoring form, even though he accepts it will not be simple for Werner to simply pick up where he left off last time out.
Thomas Tuchel said: “With strikers, you might sometimes feel like this, that you keep them on the pitch and the momentum going because it is about form. But it’s not only for strikers. It is about the actual form and confidence and we have so many games, we cannot wait for players to re-find their full potential. We normally want the guys on the pitch who are in shape, who have confidence and have a certain momentum. What we have to reflect upon is that Timo was not here. He scored the late winner against Southampton that should give him a lot of confidence. He played a good match but that was two weeks ago; today we showed some pictures from the Southampton game but it feels a bit weird because his game was so long ago. The guys have played three other matches in between, but it was our last match. We showed certain behaviours that we want to reintroduce and we want to reconnect with that feeling but it is not easy. He [Werner] needs to restart tomorrow and if he gets the chance to start, he needs this kind of performance as against Southampton. From there on we go.”
In recent seasons, Taylor has overseen several high-profile Chelsea matches in which there have been controversial calls; the most recent was the decision to send Reece James off at Anfield for handball after a brief glance at the VAR monitor. There have been others – as outlined here – and it’s worth noting the Blues have won just three of the last nine matches Taylor has officiated in the past two years. However, despite the well-supported petition, the Premier League has put Taylor in charge of tomorrow evening’s trip to Brentford. It is a decision that has irked Chelsea supporters and created a genuine reason for concern among the Blues fanbase. Yet Tuchel – who joked that he hadn’t signed the petition but could do so after tomorrow’s game – is relaxed about Taylor officiating the clash at the Brentford Community Stadium.
