Thomas Tuchel singled out Kalidou Koulibaly, a recent addition to Chelsea, for praise following the Blues’ humiliation by Arsenal in Florida.
Mikel Arteta’s Gunners completely destroyed Chelsea, winning 4-0 in Orlando thanks to goals from Gabriel Jesus, Martin Odegaard, Bukayo Saka, and Albert Sambi Lokonga.
After the resounding loss, Tuchel berated his Chelsea players and said the outcome was “worrying” in light of the upcoming season.
However, the new signing Koulibaly’s impressive second-half cameo provided the German manager with some cause for optimism following Arsenal’s victory.
The Senegal center-back, who completed a £33 million transfer from Napoli last week, entered the game for the final 20 minutes and, in Tuchel’s opinion, was “very brilliant.”
For us, Tuchel stated, “He was the best player on the field.” He was really good, I must say.
“This felt quite pleasant on a night when nothing else felt good.”
Chelsea came in third in the Premier League last season, 19 points behind champion Manchester City but five points ahead of Arsenal.
After a lackluster preseason, Tuchel claims it is useless to compare Chelsea with the Premier League’s two premier clubs. Liverpool also pulled ahead of the Blues.
Tuchel remarked, “We shouldn’t discuss the two clubs in front of us given our last two weeks and our game today.”
We were completely defeated by a team that placed behind us but won’t compete in the Champions League the following year. However, they appear to be far ahead of us right now.
Tuchel, who was visibly upset, continued, “I think we deserved to lose – which is fair – because we were just not good enough.
“We were not at all competitive.” The disturbing issue is that Arsenal had a significantly better level of dedication to this game than we did, both physically and emotionally.
‘We can argue they played with I think their strongest line-up; they’ve had now together several weeks and for more than one year.
‘They’ve strengthened their line-up, played the same structure, and this is the line-up they’ll try to start Premier League games.
‘It was not our strongest line-up and this is part of an explanation, but only a little part. The other part is worrying.’