Chelsea had conceded just twice in 14 games under Thomas Tuchel entering today. West Bromwich Albion, a side that barring a miracle will get relegated at the end of the season, scored almost thrice that amount of goals. Reduced to 10 men after Thiago Silva got sent off in the 29′, Chelsea were absolutely thrashed at home 5-2.
They did have an early lead, of 1-0 when Christian Pulisic netted his first goal in four month, but he injured his hamstring, yet again, and didn’t play the second half. And that 1-0 lead evaporated before the halftime whistle was blown.
Tuchel hopes that this match, in which the entire second half was a total calamity, will result in a “big wake up call” for his side. If they are to finish in the top four this season, and qualify for Champions League again, then yes, this blow out loss will certainly need to be a very teachable moment.
“If we look at this game in four weeks hopefully we call it a wake up call, because that would mean we really woke up,” Tuchel said to BT Sport after the game.
“After the red card we could not adapt to the situation. Even in the second half what could go wrong went wrong after the red card. Hopefully it is a big wake up call for all of us, myself included. We did big mistakes after the two yellow cards. Today was impossible for us to adapt to the situation.”
Tuchel continued:
“It is not typical for us. Today we conceded two of them and changed completely the momentum. At half time we tried to calm them down and give them confidence, but every shot was a goal from them. We had big chances and hit the post. It clearly wasn’t our day today.”
As we said, everything that could go wrong, did go south in the second 45 minutes. True Murphy’s Law on display for the west London side. They’ll have to absorb the lessons of this one, and wake up from their slumber of sloppiness and errors quite quickly.
In four days time, they’ll face FC Porto in the first leg of their UCL quarterfinal tie. We saw the Baggies exploit Chelsea’s sluggishness quite well. Portos will be even more ruthless.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank, partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Tribune and SB Nation. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.