Thomas Tuchel has labelled Chelsea’s run of three defeats in a row at Stamford Bridge “unacceptable”.
The Blues were stunned by Arsenal last night as Mikel Arteta’s side ran out 4-2 winners during an end-to-end game.
Eddie Nketiah and Emile Smith Rowe struck in the first-half and, despite Chelsea twice equalising through Timo Werner and Cesar Azpilicueta, they slumped to defeat.
Nketiah struck again after the break and Bukayo Saka scored a late penalty after being brought down by Azpilicueta.
After losses to Brentford and Real Madrid already this month, the result completed a hat-trick of home defeats and Tuchel is unhappy with the situation.
“It was very difficult. Nowhere near the quality of the last three matches and if you don’t have this quality you can lose against anybody,” he said.
“We are not satisfied. We now have three home defeats with an incredible amount of mistakes. We need to find a solution. I don’t have one right now. A number of individual errors you cannot overcome.
“I hate losing and losing three times at home is unacceptable. I have no interest in praising or criticising individual players today after a team performance like this.”
Arsenal played well at Stamford Bridge, but three of their four goals came courtesy of poor defending by Chelsea.
For the first, Andreas Christensen under hit a back-pass and the second came about when a series of errors in the box allowed Nketiah to pounce again. It became a hat-trick of mistakes when Azpilicueta brought down Saka for his penalty.
“It’s a level and amount of mistakes in consecutive games here at home that’s impossible on this kind of level,” said Tuchel.
“You don’t see it but we are doing them at the moment and you cannot win football games like this.
“Look at the penalty. It’s an unbelievable goal, from our ball possession after we had three ball losses in 10 seconds and then we do a foul when there’s not even the slightest danger.
“We robbed ourselves of the chance to have six minutes maybe for the equaliser. There is nothing more to analyse.
“We proved in the last three matches and thought we learned our lessons from Brentford and Real Madrid but obviously not.”
A dismal night for Chelsea was summed up by a Chelsea supporter having a heated exchange with Azpilicueta at the final whistle.
But asked about Azpilicueta’s exchange with the fan, Tuchel replied: “I was not part of it, I saw it, but, honestly, I can also understand the fan.”
Chelsea’s defence looked vulnerable against Arsenal and that was not helped by the absence of Antonio Rudiger, who was left out of the squad with a groin injury.
The Blues are next in action against West Ham on Sunday, but Tuchel is not confident the centre-back will return for that game.
“Not good, I don’t think he will play against West Ham,” he said.
