'Unhappy' Thomas Tuchel jokes about Erling Haaland after Chelsea sign Lukaku

Thomas Tuchel has laughed off suggestions that Erling Haaland – not Romelu Lukaku – was Chelsea’s number one striker target, ridiculing a line of question about the club’s transfer strategy.

The west Londoners broke their record transfer fee to re-sign Lukaku in a £97.5million deal from Inter, with Tuchel having made a new, more clinical forward his top priority after being let down by some profligate finishing last season.

Chelsea were originally linked with Haaland earlier this summer, though Borussia Dortmund were adamant he was not for sale even for bids in excess of £150m, so the Champions League holders switched their attention to Lukaku.

When asked if Haaland had been Chelsea’s first choice – and if the club had wanted to partner the two forwards up front together – the German coach could not resist taking the mickey and gave a very sarcastic reply.

‘Yeah we tried for both,’ Tuchel joked. ‘We tried both and wanted to have [Robert] Lewandowski on the number 10 behind but unfortunately the board didn’t listen so we need to be happy with only Romelu!’

Told that he could also have signed Lionel Messi on a free transfer too, Tuchel continued the ruse: ‘Yeah, we missed a lot of opportunities out there on the transfer market, that’s why you find me very upset and we don’t know how we should continue.

‘No, honestly, we had a certain profile and like I said, we are very happy with the attitude and the mentality of the group and we want to protect it.

‘It’s not a given that a group works like this group and this is a very precious thing and a thing that can be decisive in football and in my opinion it is decisive.

‘We are careful with this group and we want to protect it so it was not about bringing the most possible amount of players into this group.

‘It’s about we have to be sure that the players, of course good enough and talented enough, that it’s in the right state of mind that he has also something to give from his personality that improves us.

‘And we were as sure as we could be – and in any transfer there are like always issues and doubts – but we could be very, very sure with Romelu because he knows the club and he knows what Chelsea is about, so we are happy that it’s like this.’

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