Football transfer news

Thomas Tuchel has confirmed that Thiago Silva will not return in time to face Atletico Madrid on Tuesday, as the defender continues to struggle with a thigh problem.

The 36-year-old has been a key player for Chelsea since his arrival on a free transfer in the summer, particularly so since Tuchel took the reins in January.

The two worked together at Paris Saint-Germain previously and have rekindled their working relationship at Stamford Bridge, with Silva playing every Premier League minute under the German until he went off injured against Tottenham earlier this month.

Live from Cobham, you can watch Thomas Tuchel and @CesarAzpi preview #ATMCHE! ? https://t.co/DZpCTE1wdG

— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) February 22, 2021

He has since missed wins over Sheffield United and Newcastle as well as Saturday’s draw with Southampton, but there had been hope that, with a key Champions League tie on the horizon, he would be fit to return.

Speaking in his press conference ahead of the trip to Budapest however, Tuchel confirmed the match would come too soon for Silva.

Who will start in his place remains to be seen. Should Tuchel stick with the back three that has served him well in recent weeks, it seems likely that Cesar Azpilcueta and Antonio Rudiger will retain their spots, with Kurt Zouma and Andreas Christensen fighting it out for the remaining place.

Zouma came into the team against Southampton at the weekend but Christensen started the previous two matches, and was Tuchel’s choice to replace Silva against Spurs after he was forced off.

While it was bad news for Silva, the outlook was better as far as Kai Havertz and Christian Pulisic are concerned. The manager revealed that the attacking duo are in line for returns to action after short spells on the sidelines.

Tuchel was also asked to elaborate on Thiago Silva’s claims that there is ‘less pressure’ on Chelsea to succeed in the Champions League than there was at PSG. Chelsea of course won the trophy as recently as 2012, while PSG have never got their hands on a European Cup.

Tuchel said: “I understand why Thiago feels like this. As a coach I’ve never felt like this. In Paris, a lot of judgement is made of players in Champions League. Everyone expects you to win the league and cup competitions, so I understand why Thiago says that.

A special win at Atletico Madrid! ??#ATMCHE pic.twitter.com/CTok6CsTBo

— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) February 22, 2021

“As a coach, you know it takes a certain level to win competitions. So me, I felt it a big challenge to become champion every year in France and to arrive in cup finals. You feel it every day what is needed to have this mentality.

“From the outside, I understand why he feels like this. The Premier League for Chelsea is a much bigger value to Ligue 1 for Paris Saint-Germain.”

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After a little honeymoon period under new manager Thomas Tuchel, Chelsea found themselves facing a familiar problem yet again in Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Southampton.

The Blues had 71% possession against Ralph Hasenhuttl’s men, yet fell behind to Southampton’s only shot on target and needed a penalty from Mason Mount to spare their blushes. So much passing, not enough shooting.

Chelsea looked incredibly stale in attack, so much so that Tammy Abraham was hooked at half-time and Callum Hudson-Odoi came off 30 minutes after coming on because things were just that bad.

Tuchel defended his decision to haul off the youngster immediately after the game, and he recently doubled down on the substitution, but throwing him under the bus seems unfair considering he is asking Hudson-Odoi to do something new to him.

Coming through Chelsea’s academy, Hudson-Odoi was primarily a winger. When he made his breakthrough for both Chelsea and England, he was a winger. He’s great in that role, and his performances there contributed to all the hype around him.

Under Tuchel, Hudson-Odoi started out as a wing-back, but when returned to the attack, he has been deployed in a central role as a ten. Neither of those positions are natural to him.

Sure, Hudson-Odoi has played as a ten once or twice in the academy. Most notably, he played there with Mount in a 5-1 win over Manchester City in the 2016/17 FA Youth Cup final, and the pair were overwhelmingly dominant. He’s got the ability to play there.

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However, to say he’s a natural there would be outrageous, and for Tuchel to treat him as such seems a little bizarre.

Hudson-Odoi is trying to adjust to yet another new manager and another new system, but this time, it’s a system which doesn’t play to his strengths.

Truthfully, it doesn’t play to anyone’s strengths. Perhaps Timo Werner has benefited from the presence of the world’s greatest wing-back, Marcos Alonso, but everyone else is a little off it.

Mount is fantastic, but he lacks the cutting edge to play as an advanced ten, especially when Werner is alongside him. That means Mount, who has four assists to his name this season, is Chelsea’s primary creator. That’s not right.

What this formation does is rely on wing-backs to cover for the creative shortcomings of the forwards. Hudson-Odoi, Alonso and Reece James are all great at that, but the problem is is that it’s no different to what we saw from from former boss Frank Lampard.

Lampard was lambasted for relying on crosses from his full-backs and not looking to his forwards for creativity, and Tuchel is actually doing the same, so it came as a little bit of a surprise to see the new boss blame his players for their struggles against Southampton.

“The structure is never the problem and the structure is never the solution, it is always the input of the players,” he said (via the club’s official website).

Could it not be both?

Sure, players have to perform well for any system to be successful, and there’s no denying that Hudson-Odoi, Abraham, Werner, Alonso and most of the squad were off their game, but Tuchel isn’t exactly helping by not playing to their strengths.

An issue with Tuchel’s 3-4-2-1 formation is that it limits the number of attackers in favour of strengthening at the back. That’s fine, but the two behind the central striker need to be incredibly creative for it to really work, and they’re simply not.

Chelsea need the creativity of Kai Havertz and Hakim Ziyech, neither of whom have actually impressed in blue yet, but Tuchel needs to find a space for both… and Werner… and Mount… and Hudson-Odoi… and Pulisic. He needs to find a system that works for everyone.

Let’s give Tuchel the benefit of the doubt at the minute. He’s addressed the most pressing issue, Chelsea’s failing defence, but has had to balance it out in attack without the injured Havertz and the struggling Ziyech. That’s not easy.

However, making Hudson-Odoi a scapegoat for his side’s poor performance against Southampton wasn’t fair. The 20-year-old has had his feet swept out from under him too many times already, and he’s still learning the ropes of something completely new to him. Patience is key.

For more from ?Tom Gott, follow him on ?Twitter!

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Declan Rice has revealed Pablo Fornals as the inspiration behind the unique celebration that followed Jesse Lingard’s goal against Tottenham on Sunday.

West Ham breathed fire into their Champions League hopes with a 2-1 win over their London rivals, and they were inspired by Lingard, who has looked like an astute addition since his loan move from Manchester United in January.

After Michail Antonio had given them an early lead over Jose Mourinho’s team, the former England midfielder doubled their money right after the half-time break. But while his clinical finish caught the eye, so too did the celebration that followed, as Lingard, Rice and Fornals put on a show for the cameras.

Mood this morning… ??? pic.twitter.com/X2mpSSXDJv

— West Ham United (@WestHam) February 22, 2021

With Lingard playing the clarinet, Fornals on the guitar, and Rice playing drums, the trio hinted at a post-football career in music…though judging by some of the technique on show, they aren’t likely to go far.

Rice, speaking on talkSPORT, said the celebration originated from an idea Fornals had in training on Saturday.

He said: “After training, we’re always playing this game called ‘The D.’ It’s where the keeper plays it out to the edge of the D and you’ve got two touches to score.

“Pablo kept scoring, and obviously Jesse’s there, so Pablo kept doing the celebrations Jesse’s done in the past, and everyone was having a bit of a laugh.

Dancing through the defence ?

? @JesseLingard pic.twitter.com/IIe2I5RAlr

— West Ham United (@WestHam) February 22, 2021

“Before the game yesterday, Pablo was like ‘right, if we score today, Jesse you do that and I’m on the guitar.’ I was on the drums.

“It was just made up before the game. We’d just had a little giggle about it and luckily enough Jesse scored and it came off.

“My drumming needs work I think!”

Thanks in no part to Rice’s dodgy drumming, West Ham secured a win that sent them fourth in the Premier League table. They sit two points ahead of Chelsea and five ahead of Liverpool, as David Moyes’ team eye a long-awaited return to European football’s biggest stage.

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It’s been over 14 months since Jose Mourinho was appointed as Tottenham’s new manager, succeeding the sacked Mauricio Pochettino, and his time at the club has reached its lowest ebb. ‘Lowest ebb’. What a great phrase.

Spurs are ninth in the Premier League, nine points off their conquerors from Sunday and fourth placed West Ham, having lost five of their last six games in the competition.

They were knocked out of the FA Cup by Everton earlier in February in a ridiculous 5-4 defeat, but there are still the somewhat weak caveats of a Carabao Cup final – against Manchester City, the best team in Europe by quite some distance – and the potential of a decent Europa League run.

Coming up against any kind of decent attacking outfit will put Tottenham’s place in that competition in serious doubt, but for now they’re well positioned to reach the last 16 following a 4-1 victory over Wolfsberger.

But it’s not performances against sides like Austria’s fifth best team that are grating Tottenham’s fanbase.

It’s the losses to Liverpool, Brighton, Chelsea and West Ham that are grating. Not so much the City defeat, because, well…it’s City. They are quite good, after all.

Liverpool, Brighton and Chelsea were all there for the taking in some regard, but Tottenham put in flaccid performances in each defeat. Liverpool were ravaged by injuries, but still strolled to a 3-1 win. Brighton hadn’t won at home all season, so naturally a 1-0 victory for the Seagulls followed. Chelsea were still finding their feet under Thomas Tuchel, but understood his desired style of play enough to emerge victorious in north London.

Jose gives his verdict on today’s result. #THFC ?? #COYS pic.twitter.com/b7Z45xzZJs

— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) February 21, 2021

West Ham’s a little weirder. The Hammers have been brilliant all season and are well deserving of their current position of fourth, but the two goals they scored on Sunday came from sloppy defending and a lack of concentration.

It’s a recurring theme with Tottenham. They can’t defend crosses from wide positions, but it seems the issue is not being addressed.

Instead, manager Mourinho backed himself over his players, quipping: “I think for a long, long time, we have problems in the team that I cannot resolve by myself as a coach.”

Now, no one is suggesting that Tottenham’s current roster of central defensive options is brilliant. It is far from that. The likes of Eric Dier, Davinson Sanchez and Toby Alderweireld have all suffered with the demand the defensive stye has placed on those at the back this season, with their shortcomings often costing Spurs points.

But the way Mourinho has spoken recently is cause for concern for Tottenham fans, if they aren’t already on the #MourinhoOut bandwagon.

When he first arrived at Spurs, Mourinho lauded the talent in the squad, quipping: “The quality in both the squad and the academy excites me. Working with these players is what has attracted me.”

It’s taken just over a year since that statement for Mourinho to quite overtly declare his players are the problem. For some supporters, that might be good enough – after all, a number of avoidable mistakes are being made week after week, and they’re costing the club points.

What’s frustrating is these comments give a ‘what can I do?’ POV from Tottenham’s manager, when it’s his job to identify problems and make the necessary changes, or use his coaching staff to show his players how to improve.

Tell me the players aren’t good enough. *Tell me* the players aren’t good enough.

— Sean Walsh (@SeanDZWalsh) February 21, 2021

By Mourinho’s own admission, his and his colleagues’ methods are ‘second to nobody in the world’. It would stand to reason, then, that he should able to tell Dier to attack a cross at the front post rather than let it sail beyond him.

These comments are obviously peak Mourinho. No one should be surprised that he is appearing to distance himself from a team that is playing poorly. But all they do is further highlight the clash in styles between the manager and the club.

He will make it to the end of the season with his job safe. Daniel Levy is a known admirer and will give the former Chelsea boss every opportunity to make it work in north London.

But while Tottenham have been a bit of a laughing stock over the past few years, they haven’t seriously threatened to finish outside of the top ten until this season. With the focus likely to switch to the Carabao Cup and Europa League between now and the end of the season, that is a distinct possibility.

And to think, barely a few months ago we Spurs fans were shouting ‘it’s top, not joint top, it’s top’. It’s a funny game.

For more from Jude Summerfield, follow him on Twitter!

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Despite their stuttering domestic form, Liverpool are seemingly in a celebratory mood.

If you head over to their official store, you’ll find 20% off for the remainder of February – there has never been a better time to stock up on all the gear.

Here’s some of the best items on offer.

It’s the perfect time to grab yourself a home shirt.

It’s the shirt worn by the Premier League champions, it’s the first of the new Nike deal, and it’s just pretty cool.

Get yours here for for £55.96

If you’re looking for something a little different, why not treat yourself to the away shirt?

You can add a name and number on the back, but most importantly, you can get that Premier League winners patch added on. The ultimate flex.

Get yours here for £55.96

At this point, you should know the drill.

Get yours here for £55.96

If you’ve had a little one join the family, this is the perfect time to teach them which side of Merseyside they should support.

There’s even a My First Kit Box available if you want to get all sentimental about it.

Get yours here for £31.96

If you’ve already got the shirts, why not splash out on the shorts? Summer is coming, and we might even be allowed outside this time!

Get yours here for £27.96

This sale isn’t just on the men’s gear.

This women’s home shirt is the obvious pick of the bunch, but there are shorts and socks available for all the other strips.

Don’t worry, we’re not going to go through them all again.

Get yours here for £55.96

For more from ?Tom Gott, follow him on ?Twitter!

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