Though his top strikers are injured for Tuesday’s Malmö trip, Tuchel wants to see them end 2021-22 high in the scoring charts
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Thomas Tuchel wants us to think differently. The statistic shows that half Chelsea’s 26 goals in the
Premier League and
Champions League have come from defenders this season, but Tuchel has an alternative way of viewing the numbers after seeing Reece James rumble up the right flank to score two cracking goals during Saturday’s 3-0 victory at Newcastle.
According to the German, the trend is a consequence of the positional freedom he has given to his wing-backs. Tuchel has even come to see Marcos Alonso, Ben Chilwell and James as midfielders rather than defenders and, in any case, it is hardly as if the European champions expected a large portion of their goals to come from the back after spending £97.5m on Romelu Lukaku in the summer.