Thomas Tuchel explains mood in Chelsea dressing room following Champions League exit

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Thomas Tuchel praised his team’s “fantastic performance” against Real Madrid on Tuesday, but admits there is a “bitter” mood in the dressing room after failing to get the job done. The Blues faced a huge ask going to the Bernabey and trying to overturn a 3-1 deficit from the first leg last week.

Tuchel had called out his players following the defeat at Stamford Bridge, insisting they had no chance of going through to the semi-finals with a similar performance. Those words clearly resonated in the Chelsea squad though as they had Real on the backfoot from the offset.

Mason Mount opened the scoring for Chelsea early in the first half but Antonio Rudiger brought the Blues level on aggregate at the start of the second. Timo Werner then gave Chelsea the lead in the tie with just 15 minutes of normal time remaining.

Rodrygo then brought the aggregate score to 4-4 with neither side able to find a winner before extra-time. And Karim Benzema won it for Real with a brilliant finish, ending Chelsea’s run as reigning European champions.

And Tuchel has admitted that there is still plenty of “disappointment” in the Chelsea dressing room heading into their FA Cup semi-final this weekend.

“We are all a bit inbetween,” Tuchel said. “Confidence wise, I think it’s a huge boost but it’s a disappointment to go out of the Champions League at the quarter-final.

“Not in a big drama, but it’s still a disappointment because we feel we could’ve been one of the four teams in the semi-final. It was a fantastic performance at the Bernabeu and it stays like this. But it feels a bit bitter. Too many mistakes got punished by individual quality.

“We’ve got some training time now before our Sunday match and we will use it to sweat it out and be ready for Sunday.”

Chelsea go up against Patrick Vieira’s Crystal Palace side for a place in the FA Cup final this weekend. Tuchel confirmed that both Ben Chilwell and Callum Hudson-Odoi will not feature.

But there was good news of a potential return for Romelu Lukaku, with the striker in contention to play. Chelsea will go up against Marc Guehi, who was sold by the Blues last summer.

However, Conor Gallagher won’t feature for Palace with Chelsea rejecting Palace’s request to allow the midfielder to play against his parent club.

Tuchel said: “I had the chance to speak to Conor and I could see his frustration. We met some weeks ago, after the international break, we ran into each other by coincidence and we had a chat and I apologise because I know how competitive he is.

“It’s the way it is. We play to win the game and the rules were clear when we made the loan. I can understand the disappointment of Conor.”

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