Thomas Tuchel reveals frank talk with Chelsea players to try and arrest dip in form

Thomas Tuchel delivered some tough love to his Chelsea players in a forthright meeting where the German laid bare the Blues’ problems.

The Chelsea manager had held onto his frustration and anger from Wednesday’s 3-1 Champions League quarter-final first-leg humbling by Real Madrid at Stamford Bridge.

Tuchel admitted Chelsea’s Champions League defence was all-but over even at the halfway point of their tie on Wednesday night and by Friday lunchtime he had not revised that opinion.

He held summit talks with his squad on Thursday, in the wake of Chelsea leaking seven goals in two matches across five days.

“It was not a discussion type of meeting: yesterday, it was more that I gave my point of view and that’s sometimes also necessary,” said Tuchel.

“We always take the players’ view into account. But over the last two games we felt it was maybe necessary to give our point of view.

“It was behind closed doors in an atmosphere where everybody can take criticism. We don’t point fingers, we don’t look for people who are guilty, we are in this together.

“But we needed to point out some things in our game where we were not happy, but it was about the game. We are aware of the problems and we don’t like them. I don’t know if we are concerned, but this is very untypical for us.

“We looked into it and we talked to the team about it, to try to figure out how to improve and to stop this direction of travel as soon as possible.

“It’s not like us at all to defend like this and that’s why we didn’t see it coming. It wasn’t the case before the national break and it’s not so easy because it doesn’t fit into a pattern.”

Chelsea were routed 4-1 by Brentford on Saturday and several alarming defensive trends continued in Wednesday’s loss to a