Thomas Tuchel has told Chelsea to use Sunday’s Carabao Cup Final defeat as a benchmark for the rest of the season.
Despite losing to Liverpool on penalties, the German was still beaming about his side’s performance at Wembley ahead of Wednesday’s FA Cup fifth-round tie with Luton.
He is convinced it is evidence of the European champions’ ability to challenge for top honours – and compete with Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp.
The Cup now represents Chelsea’s best chance of further silverware this season – although they remain in the Champions League – but Tuchel insists the level they set on Sunday is more important than anything else.
“I will never stop loving this game that we played,” he said. “I will keep it as a memory. I will never stop loving this game that we played there. Never.
“If we win a title, we win a title. If we don’t win a title, I cannot jump off a building and I will not do it. As long as we play like this with full commitment and quality in games like this, I am a happy coach.
“Can I guarantee titles? No. I never did. And at the end of the season it is the end of the season and we will talk about it.”
Tuchel has a host of doubts for the Luton game, with a number of his players suffering from overload after extra time at Wembley.
“The situation was very, very good before the match, because we had only Ben Chilwell out,” he said. “Then the situation changed almost dramatically from this match.
“Now we have a lot of players in physical overload and we have some injuries from the match. It’s actually too much to comment because it would be a long list, so we need to see. We had training today [Tuesday], the physios, the doctors are still working with the players to find out.
“And we can take the last decision tomorrow [Wednesday] morning when we have the departure to Luton. And see who’s ready to play, because we want to be ready to play but we suffered. It’s now the third time we’ve played overtime, it was an intense match and this is where we are.”
