Thomas Tuchel says Chelsea may still need another central defender in the transfer market after admitting to using cold showers to handle the heat of the club’s summer business.
The Blues' spending has gone over £165million after they announced their fifth signing of the window, bringing in Marc Cucurella for £62m from Brighton.
Chelsea have several targets still on their agenda and are negotiating the costly and difficult possible transfer of Leicester defender Wesley Fofana.
Speaking at Cobham on Friday, Tuchel explained why Chelsea backed out of a deal for now Barcelona defender Jules Kounde but still want one more to come in.
“That [Cesar] Azpi[licueta] stayed, in actually the best position for Jules Kounde, these talks had an effect and it’s also the position of Trevoh Chalobah if we play in a back three,” Tuchel told reporters.
“Marc [Cucurella] can play in a back three on the left, Kalidou [Koulibaly] can play on the left of a three. Thiago Silva, who is not Benjamin Button and not getting younger, unfortunately, even though sometimes it seems like it.
“Maybe we bring one more player, maybe not. Still, we have Malang Sarr with us and Ethan Ampadu still with us. We have options but at the same time, we know how many games are coming. So let’s see if we can sign a player”.
Much has changed since the Boehly-Clearlake consortium bought Chelsea for £4.25bn from Roman Abramovich.
Director Marina Granovskaia and advisor Petr Cech have stepped aside on their transfer work and were replaced by Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali, who are personally conducting business in their place.
It has led to stress for Tuchel with a new way of working and how his football opinion carries more weight with experienced operators having left.
However, he has found ways to calm himself and cut a happier figure than during his side’s pre-season tour of the United States.
“I calmed myself down,” he added. “You can get lost in all these names and opportunities and suddenly you end up playing a 2-7-1 or whatever and you need to re-focus and have a cold shower and calm down or I have to and then you go ‘okay, let’s go back where we needed.
“What do we need for the squad and what kind of personality and what kind of talent do we need?’ And this is how it more or less goes.
“It was quite turbulent as well in here, I have to say. And the training camp was full of news, no news, new news and the newest news and a change of plans and finding my role in this.
“But what was very obvious from the beginning, and I was proved right, was that Todd and Behdad wanted to do things right for Chelsea and for this team. It’s very ambitious, they are hard-working, they demand it from everybody so that was not a problem but it was sometimes turbulent and sometimes distracting and not 100 per cent calm.
“Seeing that we are succeeding in the market also calmed me down and there’s been give and take for everybody.”
