Thomas Tuchel said the impact of telling his Chelsea squad some home truths was clear after watching his side eviscerate Southampton 6-0 to bounce back from successive defeats and raise hopes of keeping their Champions League quarter-final tie against Real Madrid alive.
Tuchel held frank discussions with his players on Thursday after the 3-1 defeat to Real at Stamford Bridge and demanded a sharpness, which they exhibited as goals from Marcos Alonso, Kai Havertz and two apiece from Mason Mount and Timo Werner routed a subpar Southampton.
Victory marked the perfect riposte after conceding a total of seven goals in defeats to Brentford and Real. Chelsea, who made four changes, led 6-0 after 54 minutes and Southampton moved to a three-man defence in an attempt to halt the scoring. Chelsea play the return leg in Madrid on Tuesday.
“It was necessary that we turned things around,” Tuchel said. “It was not a huge turnaround – it was not necessary to change everything – but it was a moment for us. The feeling was a moment to tell the group the truth, my honest opinion, and tell them as a part of the group: ‘This is how I feel.’
“The message was clear and obviously everybody took it in the right way. I included myself in the message and so it was necessary to step up. It is on the players to live up to what we play. They did it in an impressive manner and it is now a time to move on because we’ve found what makes us strong.”
The Southampton manager, Ralph Hasenhüttl, alluded to previous 9-0 defeats to Leicester and Manchester United and conceded his team appeared lost after 15 minutes, by which point they trailed 2-0. “I was disappointed to see that we fell back into behaviour that I thought was gone,” he said.
“It seems we have to have one game of this every season and it is very hard to take. This team kills you when you have a chance. They show you your every weakness.”
Werner scored his first league goals since October and Tuchel said the striker’s statement performance was reminder that he is “still an important player of this club and group”.
The Chelsea captain, César Azpilicueta, missed the game after testing positive for Covid-19 while Tuchel hinted that the record signing Romelu Lukaku would not return from an achilles injury in time for Madrid. “Time is running [out], we leave the country again on Monday,” he said.
