Thomas Tuchel has admitted it could take Chelsea longer than just this season to catch Manchester City despite the club spending more than £325million in the last two years.
The German labelled his side ‘Borussia Chelsea’ in reference to his time as manager of Dortmund where he had to compete with the dominance of Bayern Munich.
Chelsea head into their second-against-third clash with Liverpool on Sunday 11 points behind leaders City who are running away to a fourth Premier League title in five years. It’s a game neither side can afford to lose.
Thomas Tuchel admitted it could take Chelsea longer than this season to catch Man City
Two points separated City, Liverpool and Chelsea just over a fortnight ago with excitement over a three-horse race for the title. Now, it’s double figures.
Tuchel, though, insists his side will not give up the fight — even if it’s one that is likely to take longer than the next five months to win. City have won 27 points more than any other side in 2021, with Chelsea their nearest rivals.
‘As long as I’m here in my Borussia Chelsea, I will do nothing else than make other teams underperform,’ said Tuchel.
‘We will even try to make Manchester City underperform. We will not stop.
‘And Jurgen, I’m pretty sure he will do the same to get the best out of Liverpool. And we, here, out of Chelsea.
The Chelsea boss said Jurgen Klopp (above) will not stop to get the best out of Liverpool
'We will not stop chasing, we will not stop believing or stop doing this. Maybe the difference to the situation right now in the Bundesliga is we have the belief.
‘We have to face reality. It helps in life in general if you are not dreaming and if you are realistic at some point.
'If you look at 2021, you have to admit that City has something like, I don’t know, 20 more points than us and then Liverpool.
'We are the next in that race but it’s a big gap - a big gap in points and in goals scored.
‘I said this when I arrived, we have to close the gap as soon as possible and we will try from day one and this will not stop.
'Maybe it’s a longer race than only a one season race to catch Man City because they will not stop improving.’
Both Tuchel and Klopp know the difficulties of competing with such a dominant team from their time with Borussia Dortmund, with Klopp taking them to the title in 2011 and 2012 only for Bayern to win the last nine campaigns.
The two managers know the difficulties of competing with such a dominant team from their time with Borussia Dortmund
Tuchel believes the main reason for Chelsea falling so far — and so quickly — behind City is how badly his squad have been affected by injury and covid.
In the heat of conceding a late equaliser to Brighton, Tuchel declared it was ‘stupid’ to think that Chelsea could win the title due to their growing absentees dispute naming bench worth around £280million.
In fact, over the last two summer
