The Blues forward missed one clear chance in the first half, a moment that left his coach frustrated
Thomas Tuchel admitted that Timo Werner’s first-half miss against Real Madrid on Tuesday left both him and the German striker feeling angry.
Before Christian Pulisic opened the scoring, Werner had his close-range shot saved by Thibaut Courtois in the 10th minute of Tuesday’s 1-1 draw at Madrid in the Champions League semi-final first leg.
The 25-year-old’s finishing has come under scrutiny all season, though he did net the crucial winning goal at the weekend against West Ham.
What was said?
“He missed a big one in West Ham now he missed another big one here,” Tuchel admitted after the game in Madrid. “That does not help, but it also does not help to cry about it or to regret it all the time. It is like this.
“There are millions of people who have harder things to deal with than chances that you miss, so this is the good thing about sports – nobody cares tomorrow. Today we were sad we were angry at the moment, this is normal.
“He is angry. He may be disappointed. Tomorrow he has a free day and the next day he has to put his chin up. He is a professional guy, a top guy, he works hard. He is in positions and from there on we go.
“We will never stop pushing, we will never stop believing and I have the feeling that everybody accepts the situation like it is and as a striker it is easy, you score the next game and nobody speaks about it.”
Did Chelsea deserve to win?
Arguably yes, Madrid managed just the one shot on target from Karim Benzema’s equaliser in the 29th minute.
Madrid boss Zinedine Zidane made a few tactical tweaks at half-time to wrestle back control after being second best for the majority of the first half. It led to a balanced second half, where Tuchel admitted that his side also tired having chosen not to rotate any players ahead of kick-off.
“We defend together as a team and all the strikers play their part,” he added. “We always defend as a block with XI people so I don’t feel we are pointing fingers. But of course, the strikers are the first guys who want to score and be decisive.
“They want to do it for themselves and the team. This is the highest level. Sometimes if you have such a good half an hour as we had, with chances and half-chances, you wish for more composure and more precision in the decision-making and finishing itself.
“It was not like this so the challenge was more to not worry too long, regret too long and not lose confidence. We did this in the second half and defended very, very well. We suffered physically because we only had two days in between.
“You cannot change five times in the Premier League so it is quite physically demanding. Today you could feel this at the end of the game.”
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