Chelsea boss, Thomas Tuchel, has appeared to have given up hope on keeping Andreas Christensen at Stamford bridge come next season.
Christensen pulled himself out of contention for Saturday’s in a repeat final defeat against Liverpool just hours before kick-off.
Barcelona are firm favourites to secure the Denmark international at the end of the season
Speaking in a post-match interview, the German bemoaned the difficulty the club is facing at the moment with regards to ownership uncertainty and the UK Government sanctions on the club in recent months which had caused players to want to leave,
‘Maybe it’s impossible because they are improving their squad in every transfer window they have and it seems like we are losing key players.”
“We are of course losing Toni [Rudiger] and we are losing Andreas [Christensen]. It’s tough because we already have a gap to close,” Tuchel said.
Christensen’s unexpected withdrawal from the team hotel on Saturday morning is understood to have bothered team-mates.
It has also been speculated that Christensen had indicated that he felt unwell in the days prior to the final, something that the Blues star relayed to his head coach before deciding on the morning of the game that he wasn’t physically ready to play.
Tuchel pinpointed consistency as the key as his side have drawn all four games against the Reds in normal time this season.
‘We proved four times this season that we can produce peak performances to compete with them on this kind of level. The difference for me throughout the season is that they can do it on Wednesday again and then they do it on Saturday and Wednesday again, and we struggle,” he said.
‘They have a bigger squad available. They arrived with everybody except Fabinho fresh and in the rhythm in a final like this. We struggled with three or four players out. N’Golo Kante had one training session at 50 per cent intensity, Mateo Kovacic played with an ankle that I didn’t know it was possible you can fit into a shoe.
However, Tuchel has maintained that the Champions League winners have what it takes to challenge for titles.
‘We have everything it takes to win trophies and we proved it already. Someone was trying to convince me that we have had a trophyless season but we have a World Cup and a European Super Cup so I will take that for a trophyless season. I don’t feel sorry just because it happened earlier in the season.’
