Thomas Tuchel branded Chelsea’s first half display against Real Madrid as “one of the worst” he’s seen thus far, and claimed they could get “hammered” at the Bernabeu.
Chelsea gave themselves a mountain to climb after falling to a 3-1 defeat in the first leg of their Champions League quarter final clash with Real Madrid. Karim Benzema notched his second successive hattrick in the competition after breaking PSG’s hearts in the prior round.
His first two goals came via glorious headed efforts, though the third owed much to surprising Chelsea blunders.
Edouard Mendy and Antonio Rudiger both failed to adequately deal with an aimless ball up field. A poor pass from Mendy was compounded by a weak challenge from Rudiger to allow Benzema to slot home into the empty net.
Kai Havertz had pulled one back prior to Benzema’s third, though taking a 3-1 deficit to the Bernabeu is an unenviable task.
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Speaking to BT Sport after the match, Tuchel fumed: “It is a heavy loss. It was one of the worst first halves that I saw from us here at Stamford Bridge.
“Individually and as a team it was by far not enough. It was far from our standards and then you lose games.
“Passing, where we passed, how we passed when we passed, when we attacked, the ball possession game… first half was so from any standards that we set ourselves that we cannot complain when we…
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