Thomas Tuchel urges Chelsea to sign ‘more quality’ but says new midfielder is not a priority

Thomas Tuchel acknowledges that Chelsea still has to add players before the transfer season ends, but he believes a midfielder shouldn’t be the team’s first priority given its efforts to bring in Frenkie de Jong from Barcelona.

In Chelsea’s 1-0 victory over Everton on Saturday night, Kalidou Koulibaly and Raheem Sterling both made their full debuts, and Marc Cucurella entered the game as a late substitute to make his debut following his £62 million transfer from Brighton.

In order to get De Jong, Chelsea has also spoken with Barcelona, and according to Spanish media reports, they have now countered with an offer of €70 million (£59 million) plus Marcos Alonso.

Tuchel, meanwhile, thinks Chelsea should prioritize fresh signings for their defense and attack over the midfield.

After Chelsea’s victory against Everton, when questioned about potential additions before the transfer market closed, Tuchel responded to Sky Sports: “Yeah, if we can add, we add.”

Maybe a midfielder isn’t the best choice, but we’re open to everything.

“I believe we can reach a new level with new vigor, new legs, and fresh input.

If not, we will push this team, but I believe we could need more ideas and better work. We are investigating, but we won’t say [who].

At Goodison Park, Jorginho’s penalty helped Chelsea defeat Everton, but Tuchel confesses he wasn’t satisfied with his team’s level of play.

We have the points despite our previous seasons’ struggles to earn them. We must improve, but a win is a win, it’s the most essential thing for everything, stated the Chelsea boss.

We may not be at the greatest level; players have been added, but they were late; preseason was a little tumultuous; however, the last week of training was encouraging.

Some first-half scenarios were fairly fantastic, but I believe that in the second half we simply lacked ball movement, which led to more ball loses.

We persevered and took the required actions to preserve a clean sheet, and from there, it was a bit of an odd second half without the team’s rhythm and disruptions.