Chelsea beat Porto 2-0 in the Champions League last night, but they did lack a bit of quality up front in the game, struggling to work chances throughout.
Christian Pulisic made a positive impact off the bench, but Timo Werner and Kai Havertz barely touched the ball in the first half. The team struggled to get them the ball at all.
Thomas Tuchel said as much in his interview after the game.
“I accept that it was a tough match for Timo and for Kai today, they did not have their best day and we did not deliver so good, the connection between the deep seven players that we needed for the build-up and the front three, we lost a bit the connection to them,” the new Chelsea manager said in quotes picked up by Goal.com.
“To have a bit more of an impact, the balls we delivered were not the best balls. I could feel our two German players up front, Kai and Timo, do not play on their highest level today so I wanted to have an impact from the bench,” the coach continued.
He got a little more from Pulisic against a tiring Porto, but Olivier Giroud didn’t add much either. Overall our opposition gave us a lot of problems in every area, and it was hard work to break their lines at all.
We will need better from those two if we’re to go much further in this competition. Is Havertz at 9 really the long term solution?
Pulisic just needs to stay healthy. Not like he’s had any major injuries or a torn ACL or something….battling those hamstrings but overall to me CP is a better player than Havertz and Werner.
CP(fit)>