Tuchel says it was 'very difficult to play' on Stamford Bridge pitch

Thomas Tuchel hit out the state of the pitch, fumed at his error-strewn team and sympathised with angry fans as Chelsea crumbled to a third home defeat in a row.

'You cannot win football games like this,' snapped Tuchel after Arsenal's 4-2 victory at Stamford Bridge. 'It's impossible to do these things in consecutive matches and we're doing it.

'You simply don't see this, but we're doing it at the moment.'

He insisted it was not down to the absence of Toni Rudiger, ruled out by injury last night.

'We conceded seven goals with Toni against Brentford and Real Madrid,' said Tuchel. 'It's not about individual players, it's about the defensive performance.

'You need to have the tactics right, which is doubtful if I had this right. You need the team selection right, also doubtful if I had this right. Then it's a game for the players. They get the full praise when they do it and they have to face the reality that it's impossible to win matches like this is you make this amount of mistakes of this calibre. It has to stop.'

Andreas Christensen made a mistake for the first Arsenal goal and did not return after half time. 'He said he cannot continue,' said Tuchel. 'I do not substitute a player for one mistake. The pitch is difficult to play here, maybe it sounds like an excuse but it is a very difficult pitch here, not to our favour.

'The ball bounces very awkwardly in front of Andreas but still we had the same mistake against Real Madrid that cost us the next round in the Champions League. This one cost us this match.'

And Tuchel went on: 'Look at the penalty, an unbelievable goal from our ball possession. There is no tactics behind it. We have three ball losses in 10 seconds and then a foul where there's not even the slightest