Chelsea manager Tuchel calls for clarity on matches’ postponement

London, Jan 17 (IANS) Thomas Tuchel believes greater clarity is needed when Premier League games are postponed following a raft of recent match changes.

Chelsea were without seven players for the trip to Wolves before Christmas after an outbreak of positive cases, though Premier League guidance indicated that Tuchel had the required number of players available to fulfill the fixture.

“I feel strongly that we need clarity and consistency in the decision-making and maybe we lack this a little bit,” said the Chelsea boss at his pre-match press conference on Monday.

“I don’t need to know all the details but maybe the fans need to know. I believe in the rules still because if I start doubting or not believing, where does this end? I get the information and I accept it. I don’t lose my energy with decisions that I have zero influence in,” he said.

Recent postponements have factored in absences due to injuries and players being away at the African Cup of Nations, leaving Tuchel and many of his fellow managers confused and calling for more transparency.

“I don’t have a solution. I get asked consistently and other managers get asked but this is simply not a question for coaches. If you get asked these questions all the time, there’s obviously not enough cl’rity so I’m voting for clarity and consistency in the decision-making,” Tuchel told Chelsea’s official website.

The Chelsea manager also provided the latest update on his squad’s fitness ahead of afternoon training at Cobham, indicating there were no new absences for Tuesday night’s trip to Brighton.

“We train later but we have no re-injuries and no new injuries,” he stated. “This is actually the good news but I think nobody is coming back for tomorrow’s game.”

“It’s very hard to understand. Both us and Brighton have our next game on Sunday so there was no need to put it on a Tuesday. We played in some competitions, some will hopefully stay with us and there are some extra games to come. We have this Brighton game now because we are in Abu Dhabi playing the Club World Cup so it’s squeezed into this week and last week we had not a whole week to prepare for Manchester City because we had a Carabao Cup semi-final,” Tuchel said.

–IANS

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