Thomas Tuchel claims Kai Havertz needs to fight his way back to form after the German missed a host of chances in Chelsea’s 1-1 draw with Manchester United.
The visitors utterly dominated at Old Trafford, with Havertz having a hat-trick of opportunities in the first half.
But it was down to Marcos Alonso to fire Chelsea ahead on the hour – only for Cristiano Ronaldo to level the scores with a wonderful strike.
Tuchel insisted there was no blame on Havertz, but called on the forward to rediscover the form that has seen him edge out Romelu Lukaku at the point of Chelsea’s attack.
“He needs to fight back and into his shape and hopefully he shows a reaction,” he said post-match. “The guys are still young up front and we will not start pointing fingers.
“Lately they have been very composed and taken their chances. When we look at the data and who plays we see a huge amount of sprints and intensity from Kai and Timo [Werner] and that is why we protect them.
“In the last weeks he had a kind of shape and form where he would have put the game to bed.”
Tuchel admitted his side blew the chance to pick up all three points.
“We were very strong on and off the ball, very dominant on the ball, very aggressive off it, a lot of ball wins, a lot of half chances,” he stated.
“But, unfortunately, we lacked precision in the box, a bit of determination to finish it off, early in the match, but also in the whole match and unfortunately we had it and we gave it away in a minute.
“I was very happy with the way we played. We found enough spaces to take more advantage of it. It felt a little bit was missing in the last 16 yards to finish it off earlier.”
