Thomas Tuchel has hinted that Kai Havertz will be given the nod to lead Chelsea’s attack against Real Madrid on Wednesday.
Prior to Brentford’s stunning 4-1 victory at Stamford Bridge, the German ace, 22, had netted four goals in three Premier League appearances — but a disallowed effort against the Bees ended his fine run.
With the game seemingly over, Tuchel substituted Romelu Lukaku for the ineffective Timo Werner midway through the second half, alongside Havertz and Hakim Ziyech.
However, the Chelsea manager’s words of praise for his fellow German after the game suggested that he would be selected ahead of Lukaku again when Real Madrid visits for the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final.
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He said: “I felt Kai was our strongest player. He worked like an animal and he was very dangerous. I’m very happy with his performance.”
While Tuchel was content with Havertz’s efforts, he was not as impressed with his side’s overall display.
With the game goalless at half-time, Blues defender Antonio Rudiger opened the scoring three minutes after the break with a scorching drive.
But Chelsea quickly fell apart following that strike, with a Christian Eriksen goal sandwiched between two efforts from Vitaly Janelt.
And the home side’s misery was compounded when Yoane Wissa made it 4-1 three minutes before full-time.
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Tuchel said: “A win is always the most helpful to prepare the next match, so now it’s a bit harder because we have to digest the big loss.
“We didn’t see it coming really, and also not within the match, which is maybe the problem. I didn’t see it coming and the players didn’t see it coming.
“We will now find a way to digest it and prepare for Real. I don’t think we will do crazy stuff now and give crazy speeches or whatever.
“We do what we need to do to prepare the next match as good as possible, it doesn’t matter if it’s [against] a big name or not such a big name, there are only tough matches out there for us in the last weeks of the season.
“Now we need to do our stuff better, on a higher level, more committed, more mature and we cannot lose concentration for a minute because you can get punished for that in the strongest league.
“It’s very untypical for us but it happened on Saturday.”
