Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel must learn from Mason Mount and Thiago Silva West Brom lessons

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It was described by Thomas Tuchel as the “the day where everything went wrong”. But the real pressure is on for the first time to make as much right again as possible before Chelsea’s dreams for the season start to unravel.

After your team has gone unbeaten for 15 matches, one horrendous off-day is not going to be enough to blow you out of the race for the top four completely.

However, a repeat against Porto on Wednesday could be bad enough to spell the end of Chelsea’s outside hopes of landing another Champions League for owner Roman Abramovich.

Tuchel poured out the tale of woe afterwards.

“This was the day where everything went wrong that could go wrong,” he said. “We have the red card, we have a half-time substitution with injury.

“And then, like second half every shot is a goal and it was big chances with a post and with Kurt Zouma and then you cannot score so you got pretty, pretty quick the feeling okay, this is not the day where we can turn things around.”

But there are lessons that simply have to be learned.

Dashing Thiago Silva back from injury for this sort of high-intensity physical battle was a mistake which probably won’t be repeated.

Having courted a red card after just five minutes with a foul on Matheus Pereira, his second lunge at the Brazilian before the half-hour mark left David Coote with no option but to send him off.

Two minutes later Christian Pulisic gave Chelsea the lead but the game was turned on its head as Chelsea seemed to be already in the warmth of the dressing room as first-half injury time played out.

The centre-backs stood still as goalkeeper Sam Johnstone launched a huge clearance into he penalty area and Pereira applied a neat finish. And they were just as static as the same player added the second moments later after the latest sloppy pass from Jorginho.

Pulisic ran 10 yards onto the pitch for the second half then promptly turned around and went back down the tunnel with a hamstring injury. He has to be a doubt for Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Chelsea were also learning that his replacement, Mason Mount, cannot always be the answer.

Because in their high wing-backed determination to get back into the game, Chelsea kept getting picked off by West Brom.

Callum Robinson has only ever scored five Premier League goals and all of them against Chelsea – Saturday’s two either side of a well-deserved goal for Mbaye Diagne.

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Mount did pull one goal back to make it 4-2 for a while – a tap-in provided to him by the hopelessly out-of-sorts Timo Werner who chose to pass at close range rather than risk embarrassing himself further this week with a shot.

But the comeback never looked on as Chelsea continued to look sloppy and lethargic.

“Simply, we were not sharp enough in this,” Tuchel said. “We didn’t catch didn’t catch the momentum to be one man down, and to be closer, and to speak more, and to be a bit more aggressive, and to be a bit more tighter, and to play it more as a block, and to make it hard to create chances and to wait for your ball wins and to counter attack.

Chelsea: Tuchel's frank assessment after loss to West Brom

“Our individual defending was simply not on the level that we are used to from our guys.”

Aside from that, all looks good for Wednesday…

“It’s a big test of our mentality now,” Pulisic said. “We’ve got some really big games coming up.

“We’ve been in good form prior to the international break and obviously we’ve come back and lost one game. We can’t dwell on that because we have a lot to play for in both the Premier League and the Champions League.

“We have to recharge now, refocus and regroup and come back strong and ready for the next game.”

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