Thomas Tuchel admits Chelsea are ‘angry’ ahead of FA Cup final

Thomas Tuchel will lead an “angry” Chelsea team into Saturday’s FA Cup final.

The Blues boss admitted preparations for his first final in English football will be made easier by Chelsea’s frustrations over Wednesday’s 1-0 loss to Arsenal.

Chelsea lost ground in the race for a top-four Premier League finish with their midweek Stamford Bridge defeat to the Gunners.

And now German boss Tuchel has admitted he will harness that ire in a bid to sharpen up his squad for the Wembley showdown with Leicester.

“I am not yet in the mode to enjoy it: I still have a bit of a hangover from the last defeat so I am a bit more angry, when we will arrive in the hotel and tomorrow,” said Tuchel.

“I am not angry at myself or the players, just that we got that result and missed an opportunity.

“Hopefully we can turn it into a good performance in preparation to push the team to the edge and let them play sharp. That’s my responsibility. We want to show a reaction and to have a reaction.

“This is it. It is a big match. It is at Wembley in an FA Cup final. It is my first final here in England and it is huge.

“But I will not get carried away with emotions tomorrow, I am fully focused to prepare my team better than we did two days ago.”

Asked if the Arsenal defeat handed Chelsea a timely kick up the backside, Tuchel continued: “Yes, it clearly did. And it’s a good thing because it means it’s very easy preparation.

“We all feel that anger on ourselves on the missed opportunity and the performance that night against Arsenal. So it’s a good thing, in that it’s easy to prepare.

“Now the challenge is to focus, focus only on this match, focus on us and play on the edge.”

Tuchel has won the biggest prizes on offer in both Germany and France and has steered Chelsea to both the FA Cup and Champions League finals in just four months at the helm.

The 47-year-old offered telling insight into the mind of top-level competitors when insisting no amount of trophies ever sates an appetite for winning.

“Once you arrive in a final, and you arrive with Chelsea, you want to win the final, nothing else,” said Tuchel.

“I’ve won some finals before, and the big change to me personally did not arrive.

“You are super happy and you have the best night after that. You feel relieved, I feel so happy for everybody who was involved. I am so, so happy for two, three days.

“But after that it didn’t change anything in me. It was the same hunger the next training or when the season started again, and the same desire, the same anger when you lose games.

“I never stepped in and said ‘yeah but I won a final, now I will not take care about this stuff’; it’s not like this. It’s more like you want more and more and more.

“We are Chelsea and we are about winning and we want to win titles and as many as possible. A win tomorrow is absolutely crucial and will not change anything, hopefully, for the next one.”