Tuchel admits Chelsea were 'lucky' against Barnsley

Thomas Tuchel believes Chelsea did not put out their best performance and needed luck to go past Barnsley in the FA Cup.

Tammy Abraham saved Chelsea’s blushes with a second-half winner as his side scraped through to the quarter-finals with a 1-0 win.

The 23-year-old scored the only goal from close range and it was a tough one for Barnsley who put up a good fight.

Despite Chelsea dominating most of the possession, it was the Championship side who took the most shots and created more goal-scoring chances.

Goalscorer turned defender late on as Tammy Abraham made a clearance off his line to keep the scores level.

Tammy Abraham: Scoring at one end, saving at the other 🤯#EmiratesFACup @ChelseaFC pic.twitter.com/jgI6XOoWyX
— Emirates FA Cup (@EmiratesFACup) February 11, 2021

Seeing how the game progressed and turned out eventually, Tuchel admits Chelsea were more or less ‘lucky’ to get the win.

“We were lucky twice” he said as per the club’s website.

“In the first half to have Kepa who saved us, and we were lucky when Tammy saved us with the header on the line, so in the end we have to admit that we struggled to play but in the cup it is sometimes like this.”

“So I don’t want to be too harsh with the guys. The circumstances were not too easy and we went through which is the most important thing.”

Tuchel also admitted it was not the best performance from the Blues and he expected to see more.

“I have to be honest, yes, I am relieved” he added.

“But we can stop the analysis. It is already done. Chelsea through to the quarter-finals – full-stop!”

“We can clearly play better, it was not our best performance” he continued.

“To cope with the difficulties today was hard for us.”

“To cope with the pressure, to escape the pressure in our own half we made some changes at half-time, then we played better in the second half, in a different structure to help the team.”

“We played it very well until we scored a very nice goal but after that, the opponent again took a lot of risks and played very aggressively. We had trouble to cope with the first challenges, trouble to cope with the second balls and so in the end it was way too deep for too many minutes.”