Thomas Tuchel was describing Chelsea’s accomplished if slightly forgettable 2-0 FA Cup semi-final win over Crystal Palace - even the man himself conceded Sunday’s Wembley encounter was not one to quicken the pulse of neutrals - but could equally have been summarising his entire Stamford Bridge tenure.
We’re in a period where English football’s centre of gravity is somewhere on the west of the M62 as Manchester City and Liverpool duke it out for supremacy at home and abroad.
The latest strip of bragging rights went to Jurgen Klopp’s men in Saturday’s semi as they were deserved 3-2 winners over a much-changed City.
After Chelsea’s win, Tuchel was asked slightly giddily if he was enticed by the prospect of “stopping their quadruple”, even though Liverpool could be out of the UEFA Champions League by the time the FA Cup final rolls around on May 14, at which stage the Premier League might very well remain up for grabs.
“All we can do now is be well prepared because it will be another hard fight. Given the quality and given the run of form Liverpool are on, it’s unbelievably difficult to beat them,” Tuchel said.
“But this is what the cup final is about - it is about winning and we need to find a way to beat them.”
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Focus on Klopp and Pep Guardiola’s incredible sides is understandable but, in normal circumstances, there’d probably be more acclaim for Tuchel too. Fifteen months after Frank Lampard’s tenure descended from excitement into debilitating inconsistency, Tuchel has led Chelsea to Champions League, Club World Cup and UEFA Super Cup glory.
They also came up short in last season’s FA Cup final against Leicester City and February’s Carabao Cup tussle with Liverpool, the latter after a mammoth penalty shoot-out. The fact Tuchel gets a shot at righting both of those wrongs should come as no surprise.
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Over the course of his career, the former Borussia Dortmund and Paris Saint-Germain boss has progressed from all 11 semi-finals he has contested, with his teams scoring 30 and conceding four in these matches.
Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Mason Mount’s goals against Palace mean Chelsea will now play 63 matches this season out of a possible 66. The missing trio come on account of Champions League heartbreak at Real Madrid last midweek, when they were 10 agonising minutes away from completing an implausible comeback triumph.
“It was everybody’s right to digest it because we had from Tuesday to Sunday, which is an awful lot of time for us in our schedule,” Tuchel said.
“We used it. We gave them a day off, we trained the next day in the afternoon and we gave them the speech after Madrid straightaway. There were mixed feelings, there was a lot of positive feedback because we won - it was a fantastic result and a great performance and still we go out of the competition that we wanted absolutely to stay in.
“We gave them time and I can tell you that on Friday the training quality was excellent. This was the very best sign, it always is.”
While it should be acknowledged he is working with one of the best resourced squads in world footbal - both in terms of transfer outlay and the fabulous fruits of the Cobham academy - responding positively to adversity has been a repeated storyline for Tuchel.
Through no fault of his own, his appointment was not especially popular as he followed a deposed club legend. Then there was the spectacle of club record signing Romelu Lukaku publicly calling out his tactics and seemingly courting a return to Inter after an underwhelming first half of the season back at Stamford Bridge.
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Dwarfing each of these bits of turbulence were the recent ructions over the club’s ownership, against the bloody backdrop of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Every time Tuchel spoke candidly, honestly and got on the with the job. His players, in turn, got on with winning.
He has also established a relationship with fans few expected when he replaced Lampard and not as a mere cheerleader for their backing. When a section of Chelsea fans began chanting Roman Abramovich’s name during a minute’s applause showing solidarity with those suffering in Ukraine, he called it out and condemned it. He neither patronised fans or made excuses; he simply talked to them like grown ups.
Tuchel’s history of difficult relationships with his employers at previous clubs means these well-judged human qualities being to the fore have come as a pleasant surprise. It’s part of the reason he was able to lambast the back-to-back home defeats to Brentford and Madrid.
He earned the right to be publicly frank with his players and their response has spoken volumes - to the extent he had to calm them down a touch during the final preparations to face Patrick Vieira’s impeccably well-drilled Palace side.
“On Friday, all the others [who played against Madrid] came back, the full group, and the training was at such a high intensity and high level that I almost got scared that we did too much,” he revealed.
“We reduced training [on Saturday] in terms of intensity.
“This is what makes the group special and this is what these guys do constantly. They put ego aside and do what they love. This is what I love in the end - it is just like amateur football at some point, for the love of it and being out there having a good time in training.
“So we felt well-prepared without having big talks about Madrid because what could I tell them that takes the pain away?”
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It’s a fair question, but an FA Cup success at Liverpool’s expense would be a wonderful balm.
The Premier League’s big six has had a big two breakaway, but Tuchel’s Chelsea certainly do not deserve to be ranked alongside Tottenham, Manchester United and Arsenal as they try to squeeze into the final Champions League place like a troupe of clowns fighting over the last seat in a tiny car.
Along with a cherished old trophy, that is what else Chelsea will play for on May 14 - to prove that the big six splintering is one of three and three.
“Of course it makes a season so much sweeter if at the end you have a final you can win,” Tuchel added. “But we experienced last season and this season that you can give your all and it is not enough,
“We will try to find a way and, if we do this then we deserve it. We want to deserve it.”
