What did you specifically learn tonight and why did you not hear your players more?
“I learned a lot of things, but I won’t start on that because it will be a long answer. I didn’t hear them because Sheffield United had more voice, more personality and that was reflected in the way they played.”
Defensively what was your assessment and how patient can you afford to be with your defence?
“We made mistakes which led to goals, individual errors and against good teams like that you are going to lose football matches. They are a good team. You don’t want to say you’re patient, we are all striving for the answer right now, but at the moment where we are at, the answer is we have got how many games that we know in the league and in the cup and the Champions League this season. So I just want to look forward and not get into the analysis and details of the game today, and we have to be positive.”
What did you make of Antonio Rudiger’s performance and how was his reaction of not starting?
“What reaction do you mean? Something that you know?”
Just how he has been in not starting..
“He has been very positive, very positive in training. I have selection problems. I say this every press conference, with trying to pick a team out of the squad because there is competition within the group and there was no problem with him.”
Did the defeat confirm areas where you need to improve?
"Not just for one game. I am always analysing daily and game-by-game but yes, I learned a lot today about the players. You tend to learn more in tough moments and tough games.
"That’s for me to work with and deal with going forward. I think it was collectively not one to cry our eyes about for days.
"We are in a situation where the games are coming very quickly. We know where we are at. We have the opportunity to fight for the top-four which is something not many expected of us earlier in the season and you will take knocks in the Premier League.
"Particularly in the situation that we are at and the phase we are in. We are nowhere near the finished article. I know that. I won’t get overexcited and on days like today you have to learn and improve.
Pulisic fouled early in the game, do you think that hurt his performance?
"I don’t think so. I don’t think the tackle early in the game, it was a strong tackle, I don’t think it had any effect on him. You know, there are games that are difficult individually and Christian has affected games really well individually recently so I certainly won’t be looking at him. Everybody who played that game should want more from the Chelsea side.
Was today about tactical problems or mentality?
"I think Sheffield United play in a very certain way and a pretty unique way, to be fair. So the players had all the information they needed but if you are going to play with a slow level, a low technical level compared to how we normally play with our first touch and the ability to play forward quickly. If we are not going to compete at the level we should do in the first 45 minutes in particular, then it doesn’t matter how you set up tactically.
"As Chelsea we come here, we respect Sheffield United. We matched them up in the second half (with our formation). I still felt physically at times we weren’t good enough, we didn’t create enough in our quality of our game or the physical nature of it."
