When key players leave your club, you never want to see them forced to adopt new playing styles. But such was the case for Chelsea in a stretch of games where they had to confront domestic and continental challenges without either Romelu Lukaku or Timo Werner up front, and they were able to do so by relying on Kai Havertz and Christian Pulisic as substitutes in the normal no.9 role.
We had so much success in recent matches with the "false nine" role that the community demanded it be retained, at least for the upcoming match against Manchester United at Stamford Bridge. But manager Thomas Tuchel had a different plan, despite the fact that both Werner and Lukaku had returned from injury.
While Werner did return to the pitch on a high note by scoring our fourth and final goal against Juventus last Tuesday, it may have been too soon to trust him to lead the attacking charge against a dangerous United side, despite their recent poor form. Even Tuchel had to acknowledge that his compatriot looked far from his best in his attempts to get Chelsea moving in front of goal.
"I believe we can still see Timo hasn't played in a long time." So, can we anticipate him to be at his ultimate peak? No, we are unable. So it's always a bit of what we can expect at the time. " He looked quite good in training and scored a lot of goals in the last two sessions. That's why I went with my intuition and placed him on the field, hoping he could injure the two central defenders.
"It was Timo's decision since he looked incredibly sharp and scored against Juventus, so we thought he could be decisive or the main threat in the midfield." It wasn't easy for him today, and you could see that he certainly lacks some games, so we'll see how things go from here."
While Werner started, Lukaku remained on the bench, as he did during our Juventus match. In an ideal world, he would stay there until he was fully recovered. But, given the condition of the game at the time of his (maybe too late) substitution for Werner, Tuchel felt obligated to call on the big Belgian as Chelsea made their final attempts at a winning goal at Stamford Bridge.
"If Romelu is totally fit, he's a starter for us, but he's not right now." It was more than I wanted to utilize him, but the game was so close to the opponent's goal that we thought he could aid with pushing and maybe one last touch. In the centre of the goal, we were lacking a bit of a danger."
-Thomas Tuchel; Chelsea Football Club
At the very least, we tried our utmost to make anything happen, and we came dangerously close to overcoming what Tuchel considered an unjust draw. But, in the end, we couldn't find an advantage in the scoreline.
It does happen. It's time to move on and heal.
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