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Football London
Football London
Sport
Tashan Deniran-Alleyne

What happened between Thomas Tuchel and Kurt Zouma in Chelsea training ahead of Man United clash

Chelsea have completed their final preparations for this afternoon's Premier League clash against Manchester United.

It's fifth versus second at Stamford Bridge and the Blues have two incentives to go all out for all three points.

The first being a win will see them leapfrog West Ham United into the final Champions League spot - after their London rivals were beaten by Manchester City yesterday - while they can also move to with three points of the Reds with victory.

When the two sides met at Old Trafford earlier in the season it finished goalless, but with the top-four battle heating up, many are expecting goals and entertainment in west London.

Ahead of the big game, the likes of Christian Pulisic, Kai Havertz, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Olivier Giroud were put through their paces at Chelsea's training base in Cobham on Friday afternoon.

It was a normal session as one would expect, but there was a hilarious moment involving head coach Thomas Tuchel and defender Kurt Zouma.

As spotted in a 'Chelsea Unseen' training session video uploaded to the club's YouTube page, the German tactician can be seen holding his head in his hands out of sheer disbelief.

The reason for this reaction is explained at around the 8.17-minute mark as Zouma loses count of how many times the ball was allowed to be passed before finding the net during a training drill.

Along with Tuchel, midfielder Mateo Kovacic also put his hands on his head, while Timo Werner appeared to have a few choice words with the Frenchman.

Zouma will be hopeful his mistake doesn't cost him a chance of returning to the Chelsea 11 for the visit of United, a game that Tuchel has revealed is a big challenge for his players.

"Hopefully we can win, this is what we go for," said Tuchel in his pre-match press conference at Friday lunchtime. "We know that it is a big challenge because of their unbeaten away record so far.

"We know what we are up against, a team that can hurt you any second with individual quality and can hurt you any second with speed.

"They are a strong team away, they can defend very compact and they are very, very good in transition with their wingers and with [Marcus] Rashford, Bruno Fernandes' deliveries, Mason Greenwood, Edi [Edinson] Cavani, [Anthony] Martial and whoever plays it will be a big challenge to defend all this, to defend counter-attacks.

"The implications are huge. If we get a win out of this game, it is huge for us and if they get a win, it is huge for them to increase the difference between us.

"Let's see."

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