'No excuses' Zouma urges Chelsea to bounce back from West Brom defeat

Kurt Zouma says Chelsea have no time to be sorry for themselves and must bounce back quickly from their humiliating loss to West Brom.

Kurt Zouma has insisted Chelsea cannot seek excuses for Saturday’s shock 5-2 Premier League thrashing at the hands of West Brom.

The Frenchman had a day to forget as Chelsea suffered their first defeat under Thomas Tuchel.

The first goal:

Too much space between Zouma and AC, I’ve seen that many times before

2nd goal:

J5 mistake, just boot it😭

Subs: Havertz for Werner, because West Brom will likely sit back for the 2nd half. J5 can’t get any worse tbf.
— Lampardinho (@CFC_Lampardinho) April 3, 2021

Thiago Silva’s first-half red card altered the complexion of the contest, but after that the Baggies dominated and fired five impressive goals.

For their next outing, Chelsea will take on Porto in Seville in the Champions League quarter-final first leg on Wednesday. Zouma admits there is precious little time to dwell on the West Brom loss and has urged his teammates to react strongly.

“The result speaks for itself. Everyone is very disappointed, but it’s just one game and we need to get back to what we were doing before the international break and, hopefully, we will get back to it as soon as possible” he said to the club’s official website.

“There’s no time to find excuses. We didn’t win the game, we lost badly, and it’s a very difficult game to swallow, but we have to because we’ve got another game in midweek and we have to prepare for that.”

“We have to bounce back. We have to react strongly and this is what we are going to do.”

“I don’t know what happened. After the international break, maybe a loss of focus, maybe a lack of commitment, but in a game like that you have to always be 100 per cent. Why we didn’t play 100 per cent I don’t know.”

Zouma added: “There are days when it’s not your day. Everyone’s very disappointed, there’s not much I can say.”

“Maybe we weren’t focused enough, maybe West Brom wanted it more than us, but I don’t think that’s possible. You have days like that where nothing goes your way.”

“You have to learn from everything. In football you have to give your all every time on the pitch. We learn there maybe tactically, from mistakes on the ball, without the ball too. We will analyse it calmly and then move on from there.”