Here is your Chelsea morning digest on Sunday, April 4.
Cole explains Tuchel 'lesson'
Joe Cole believes Thomas Tuchel was given "a lesson" in Chelsea's 5-2 defeat to West Bromwich Albion on Saturday afternoon.
The Blues threw away a one-goal lead at Stamford Bridge, after spending the majority of the game with 10 men following Thiago Silva's red card.
It was Tuchel's first defeat in the Blues dugout and former Stamford Bridge favourite Cole thinks he may have learned something new about the Premier League.
Speaking on BT Sport, the ex-Blues winger said: “When you’re managing in the Bundesliga and you’re Bayern Munich or one of the top clubs and you’re playing the team second from bottom, you can shift things around and you can plan for the next game.
“But the Premier League is unwavering. The levels are high. You can’t take your foot off the pedal.
“It’s a mindset. It’s a lesson for the manager. We can’t be too harsh on him because he’s been faultless so far, but this is a lesson that the Premier League is unforgiving and no matter who you play against you’ve got to be 100% or you won’t win.”
What Kovacic said to the referee
Mateo Kovacic clammed referee David Coote after the Croatian was shown a yellow card in the defeat to West Brom.
Kovacic was booked following a poor challenge, but he definitely didn't agree with Coote's decision.
As reported by football.london's Chelsea correspondent Adam Newson, the Blues midfielder said to the referee: "Shame on you. Yeah, yeah, well done. Worst ref ever."
Read the full story here.
Tuchel hoping for 'wake-up call'
Tuchel is hoping that the 5-2 loss at the hands of 19th-place West Brom proves to be a "wake-up call" for his Chelsea side.
After 14 games unbeaten to start off his career in west London, the Blues were comfortably beaten by the relegation-threatened Baggies.
Speaking to the media after the game, Tuchel said: "If we look at this game in four weeks hopefully we call it was a wake-up call because it would mean we woke up and started a new run.
"For me, it wasn't necessary and I didn't feel we were overconfident or arrogant or lacked effort. They started to defend deep, we had ball possession and we were getting better and better in the game, created good moments, ball recoveries high up the pitch.
"But even eleven against eleven, we had critical ball losses in our own half which produced two set-pieces around the box. So I was more concerned with our body positioning, the positioning in the build-up.
"Everything was rusty which I was surprised with after two days of training. But I could accept it after two weeks, a lot of travelling, a 12.30pm kick-off, I didn't have the highest expectations.
"I thought, 'Ok if it takes us a while to come into the match I will accept it and push. We score the goal but to have a red card straight after the goal meant maybe we didn't feel the risk. But we did that. We will talk to the players about it but the attitude and defending was clearly not the same as we did before."
