Tuchel: West Ham always do this

Photo: Chris Lee – Chelsea FC/Chelsea FC via Getty Images

Chelsea defeated West Ham 2-1 at Stamford Bridge on Saturday afternoon, however the football on display wasn’t always brilliant.

Chelsea bossed possession for much of the game, but couldn’t find space to hurt the Hammers.

The first-half was particularly drab as there was no clear-cut chance for 45 minutes.

Tuchel blamed the poor first-half on West Ham’s tactics.

“I see this all the time when I analyse West Ham, this is what they do,” explained Tuchel.

“They make you underperform and make the game slow. They make it so difficult for you to accelerate the game, to find open spaces.

“If you find them it’s just for a short moment and maybe in spaces where you cannot be dangerous. This is what they do, they defend with bodies, they defend with physicality.

“It is very hard to create chances, create half chances, even deliveries. It is almost impossible to come back once they are ahead so the task became more and more difficult for us.

“We did not play with maybe the biggest self-confidence and the biggest belief, which I can understand given the last results and nobody was angry at our players.

“I just tried to tell them to keep believing and find maybe a better understanding for where the rhythm goes, for where we can maybe create an overload.

“It’s really hard to play a really attractive game against them because they do what they do very well. To turn this thing around maybe it needed almost to be a goal down and have nothing to lose any more.”