Thomas Tuchel has bemoaned the fixture schedule as a reason for Chelsea dropping more points in the Premier League.
After falling to a tightly contested 1-0 defeat at Manchester City on Saturday, Chelsea extended their poor run of form with a tired 1-1 draw at Brighton on Tuesday.
They have now cut the gap to leaders City to 12 points, but have played a game more. If City win that game in hand, Chelsea will need to gain a point-per-game on City in their final 15 fixtures to finish above the Blues.
And Tuchel, who is now four Premier League games without a win and on a wider run of four wins in 13, feels the fixture schedule is the reason for Chelsea's poor results since November.
Pointing to Chelsea's Carabao Cup semi-final double-header earlier this month, the manager noted now City and Brighton have both had longer to prepare for their games than Chelsea have.
He said: "You can say it’s an excuse or whatever but it’s like this, look at our schedule.
"When we arrived at Man City, we had a Carabao Cup game before and they did not. Now we arrive here, they had more days to prepare, they had a whole week to prepare before.
"We play since November, the team that plays and plays and plays and plays. We need to recharge the batteries and we need to disconnect. This is my feeling, this is why we give the players two days off and then we will prepare for two days. We will use Friday and Saturday to prepare for Sunday because then it’s the next game against Tottenham.
He added: "I am so happy that we have at least four days. Look at our last week and you know what I am talking about. Within seven days we had three away games. It’s not only about playing, it’s about travelling, it’s about not sleeping and we don’t do this one week and complain.
"We don’t complain now, it is just to explain why the performance can look sometimes like this in the middle of January in an away game at Brighton.
"This can happen and if you tell me this never happened to any team in the Premier League before I can only laugh. We do this since November so we arrive in a game where we don’t reach our full potential, okay, welcome to reality. You cannot be surprised.
"We want more, we want to do better, but in the end we have to accept it. Okay, we take a draw and we go. We tried everything, we tried hard, but it’s a certain level of fatigue that you can feel.
"We weren’t able to press home the advantage after our goal because we are tired. We are mentally tired and physically tired and you can see it in our performance. It’s as easy as that."
