Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel has revealed that Wednesday's 3-1 loss to Real Madrid drove him to a chocolate binge.
The Blues have a mountain to climb in their Champions League quarter-final tie, with Blancos striker Karim Benzema having helped himself to a hat-trick in Wednesday's first leg at Stamford Bridge.
Tuchel was disgusted with his side's performance, particularly during the first half, and says that they have little chance of turning things around at the Santiago Bernabeu, admitting that they will get "hammered" if they do not defend better than they did at home.
What has Tuchel said?
"The amount of chocolate I needed was immense to go through the [first leg] again and compensate," Tuchel told reporters at Cobham.
"You sit there in the middle of the night, it is not nice, you start writing and writing and writing.
Next Match
"You realise that you are spending more and more minutes trying to explain [what went wrong] so that you don't forget it.
"At some point, you press the button to watch [the video] at double-speed, just so it passes quickly. When you do that, you know you're not in a good place!
"At some point, you have to stop and take a walk into the kitchen or the lounge, and come back and calm down. It was not nice to watch."
He added, "Unfortunately, and a bit surprisingly, we lacked structure in the game. Normally, our big strength is that you clearly see what we are trying to do."
How are Chelsea shaping up for Southampton?
The Blues, who were beaten 4-1 at home by Brentford last weekend, will be without injured duo Callum Hudson-Odoi and Ben Chilwell for their next Premier League outing, at Southampton.
Furthermore, Romelu Lukaku and Hakim Ziyech are also doubtful for Saturday's trip to St Mary's Stadium.
Along with fitness issues, there are a number of players out of form, including Ballon d'Or nominees Jorginho and N'Golo Kante.
Although Tuchel has acknowledged the pair's struggles this season, he still wants the future of his two senior midfielders resolved this summer, having already had to deal with speculation over several centre-backs on deals that are soon to expire.
"With important players, it’s a wish as a coach that we solve [contractual issues] every summer," he said, "so that it’s clear what the decision is [before the season starts].
"We have had the same [transfer] talk about Toni [Rudiger] and Andreas [Christensen], now we are just swapping the names [for Jorginho and Kante].
"We end up talking about [contracts] throughout the winter, then January comes and the agents talk with other clubs…
"It's a bit difficult [to deal with], so it would be nice if we can avoid it. This should be our target.”
The Blues boss concluded by defending £100 million ($136m) striker Romelu Lukaku, who has again been linked with a return to Inter this week: "We bought him because we believed in him.
"Is it working out in the way that everybody wanted? No, of course not. But it is not on him after two defeats. He didn’t even start these two matches."
.jpg?auto=webp&format=pjpg&width=640&quality=60)
.jpg?auto=webp&format=pjpg&width=640&quality=60)
