Chelsea star Antonio Rudiger ‘showed Kepa Arrizabalaga who’s boss’ after West Brom defeat

Chelsea: Tuchel opens up on Pulisic injury blow

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Chelsea star Antonio Rudiger ‘showed Kepa Arrizabalaga who’s boss’ in the wake of the club’s 5-2 defeat to West Brom on Saturday, reports say. The Blues went into the match looking to continue their fine form under Thomas Tuchel. But that didn’t happen, with the west London giants instead crashing to defeat.

Chelsea took the lead against Christian Pulisic, who struck from close range after Marcos Alonso had come close with a free kick.

But, following the dismissal of Thiago Silva, West Brom were able to turn the game around.

Chelsea conceded five goals to the Baggies, with Matheus Pereira and Callum Robinson bagging braces and Mbaye Diagne also on target.

It was a blow to the Blues and, in the aftermath of the result, Kepa and Rudiger had a bust-up.

The Athletic say things kicked off because the Spain international was giving the defender a few verbals as the match was going on.

And, in training the next day, Rudiger and Kepa had a row after both going for the same ball.

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It’s claimed there was plenty of pushing and shoving involved, with an insider adding that: “Rudiger showed Kepa who’s boss.”

In order to calm the situation down, Tuchel sent Rudiger into the dressing room a few minutes early.

And it’s said that things were resolved in the aftermath, with the pair exchanging apologies and hugging each other.

Tuchel won’t be overly happy the news has leaked out, however, and will now be aiming to get his Chelsea side back to winning ways against Porto in the Champions League this week.

Speaking after the defeat to West Brom, the former Borussia Dortmund and PSG boss urged his side to learn from the experience.

“Nothing so much until the red card, after that we were not able to cope with the situation,” said Tuchel.

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“I don’t know why. After the red card, we could not adapt. We gave away two easy goals. Even in the second half, what could go wrong went wrong.

“We have to accept a big loss today. Hopefully it’s a big wake up call for all of us – me included.”

Tuchel admitted that he did not have eyes on the incident that earned Silva a second yellow card, but stressed that it cannot be used as an excuse for his side’s poor result.

“I didn’t see,” he added. “Twice, it was not his mistakes. We made big mistakes before the two yellow cards. We are responsible.

“Too many easy ball losses. Then we got a red card and it was impossible for us to adapt.”

West Brom boss Sam Allardyce cut a delighted figure following the victory, admitting it gives them hope of staying in the Premier League.

“We’re really pleased and satisfied with how the players applied our tactics today, how we set out to control Chelsea’s attacks and what we could do in possession of the ball,” he told BT Sport.

“I have to say, because we ended up being so good in possession of the ball on so many occasions, and our quality of finishing was the best it’s been since I’ve been here, it gave us a thoroughly deserved victory.

“People will of course look to the fact they went down to 10 men, but I’ve been manager of many teams that have gone down to 10 men and won and not lost, so we took full advantage after that.

“I thought Silva was lucky to stay on when he pulled Pereira back with both his hands, going through he’d maybe score a goal.

“Then we had to recover from the goal they scored and did that brilliantly.”

And he then added: “I have to be totally delighted with the players’ performance today. It still gives us a bit of hope going forward.

“It’s a bit of a long wait for Southampton to see if we can get our first back-to-back wins now.

“There’s a long way to go. I said we needed six wins out of nine, now it’s five out of eight and we might have a chance, and even then we might need a draw.

“But we’ve started on the track of an undefeated run and trying to get more wins in the last eight games than we have all season. It’s been done before and this is a good start. But it’s a long way to go still.”

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