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Football London
Football London
Sport
George Smith

What happened to Olivier Giroud in Chelsea training session ahead of Crystal Palace showdown

Chelsea will be looking to build on their midweek UEFA Champions League quarter-final first-leg victory over FC Porto when they make the short trip to Selhurst Park to face Crystal Palace this evening.

The Blues, who hammered Palace 4-0 at Stamford Bridge back in October, got back to winning ways in midweek thanks to goals either side of half-time from Mason Mount and Ben Chilwell.

It was the perfect response from the Blues following last weekend's shock 5-2 home defeat to West Bromwich Albion, marking head coach Thomas Tuchel's first defeat in the job since succeeding Frank Lampard towards the end of January.

Thomas Tuchel on Tammy Abraham, Kai Havertz and Chelsea loans

Now, before resuming their European battle with Porto in midweek, Chelsea face a short hop across London to face Palace this teatime knowing that a victory would move them into the top-four ahead of West Ham United, who are not in action until Sunday this weekend.

Ahead of the showdown with Roy Hodgson's men, who will enter this teatime's meeting having lost just one of their last six Premier League matches, Tuchel has been putting his players through their paces at their Cobham training base in preparation.

One of the biggest features of their latest training session was shooting practice, as captured by Chelsea's club cameras for their behind the scenes YouTube feature.

The Blues have uploaded five minutes worth of unseen, behind the scenes footage for supporters to watch and get an insight into how the players have been getting themselves ready for today's tussle with their London counterparts.

And one particular moment is likely to have brought a smile to the faces of those watching.

With Chelsea's strikers having been struggling to score goals of late, Timo Werner, Tammy Abraham and Olivier Giroud were put through some rigorous shooting drills in an attempt to transform their current fortunes.

Whilst most of their efforts found a way past Willy Caballero in the Blues goal, one of Giroud's efforts went flying over the crossbar. For his failings, the France international, who is out-of-contract at Stamford Bridge this summer, was handed a light-hearted punishment.

The former Arsenal man was ordered to do ten press-ups as a forfeit.

Giroud obliged without any fuss and soon started to test his strength whilst Werner took aim at Caballero in between the sticks once again.

In truth, it will be little surprise to anybody to see Chelsea's forwards carrying out such intensive shooting drills after they were challenged by Tuchel to end the season with a flourish and increase their respective goal tallies, as the Blues continue to be linked with summer moves for both Erling Haaland and Sergio Aguero.

Tuchel, as quoted by the Mail, said: "For the next eight weeks, we just have to think how we can improve the scoring and the scoring situation, and nothing else, and then in the summer we will think further and think together with the club about what solutions are the best solutions for us.

"Is it the best solution to stay with our squad? Is it the best solution to stay in the formation that we have? Can we improve on the training pitch individually and as a group... these are the questions for June.

"For now, in April when we arrive, everybody knows that when you read the statistics it's obvious and the guys lack this last percentage of confidence when they don't score.

"Everybody wants higher numbers, us, you, but it's difficult for us to produce, obviously, but we will not stop pushing."

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