This could get Thomas Tuchel sacked. Chelsea have lost in their opening Champions League group stage game 1-0 against Dynamo Zagreb, adding even more pressure onto Chelsea’s bad start to their season.
This couldn’t have been a worse result from the Blues if they tried. Losing a slow, boring, defensive slog of a game against a much inferior opponent, even though Zagreb is the reigning Croatian league champions, was the worst way to lose if you’re Thomas Tuchel.
Already, Chelsea have been heavily criticized for having a slow, boring, and ineffective attack as the only striker they bought this summer was a 34-year-old Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who they acquired only the last day of the window.
They are extremely lucky to be sitting on 10 points in the Premier League as they had two huge no-goal VAR calls go for them against Leicester City (they won 2-1) and against West Ham United (they won 2-1).
If those goals actually counted, which they should have, then they would have only 6 points from 6 games and be languishing in 15th place in the Premier League.
If Thomas Tuchel thought he was under pressure before this game, well, he has a whole other thing coming for his head now: aka…the English Press.
They will lambast the Chelsea manager to no end, especially due to their strange transfer window.
Under Thomas Tuchel’s direction, Chelsea have spent €166.5M, alone, on defenders (Welsey Fofana, Marc Cucurella, and Kalidou Koulibaly) alone this transfer window, even though they already had Ben Chilwell, Reece James, Caesar Azpilicueta, Thiago Silva, and Trevor Challaboah under contract.
Oh, and I think it’s worth mentioning that, under the two years of Tuchel’s reign, Chelsea finished with the third-best defense in the Premier League last season (33 GA, and second-best in 2020-21 (36 GA).
Thus, even though I feel bad for Tuchel when he gets hammered by the English media, his transfer priorities this offseason have been…questionable, to say the least. They had to replace Antonio Rudiger, who left on a free to Real Madrid, but did they have to buy two center-backs and a fullback to replace him, instead of buying a world-class striker?
I’m not so sure.
However, what I am sure about is that this game was atrocious to watch, if you were a Chelsea fan.
The only thing of note to happen within the first 85′ was Zagreb’s goal.
The move came from a Zagreb clearance from their own box to midfield as the Zagreb forward, Bruno Petković, beat Koulibaly to the ball and nodded it forward to his strike partner, Mislav Oršić, who blew past Wesley Fofana to go in on goal and dinked the ball over an oncoming Kepa Arrizabalaga to give Zagreb the 1-0 lead.
There really isn’t too much to take away from this goal other than the fact that Chelsea’s two new center-back signings made two colossal mistakes. Koulibaly should have headed the ball, while Fofana should have seen Oršić’s run. Simple as that.
Nevertheless, the only chance that Chelsea got to tie the game was in the 85′ with Reece James and Mason Mount getting absolutely robbed by Zagreb’s goalkeeper, Dominik Livaković. Sure, Chelsea didn’t deserve an equalizer, but if it wasn’t for Livaković’s late-game heroics, then they would have snatched one.
Anyway, this game thankfully ended after an outrageous 8 minutes of stoppage time (what was the ref thinking to put us through 8 more minutes of misery?) to the sounds of uncontrollable cheers and celebrations from the Croatian crowd and the Zagreb team.
In reality, this game shouldn’t really matter come Matchday 6 as Chelsea should be in pole position to advance, while Zagreb will be fighting to make the Europa League. Yet, with Milan and Salzburg both picking up points, perhaps this is the year Chelsea crumbles in the group stage and fails to make it to the Round of 16.
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