Chelsea beat Burnley 2-0 in the Premier League on Sunday thanks to goals from Azpilicueta and Marcos Alonso.
Tuchel used a 3-4-2-1 formation against Burnley and quite surprisingly, he chose to name Marcos Alonso at left wing-back instead of summer signing Ben Chilwell. The Spaniard has been living on the fringes so far this season but the new manager chose to put a lot of trust on him which he duly repaid with a goal towards the end of the match.
And after the match, Thomas Tuchel explained why he made the decision to use Marcos Alonso on the left-hand side rather than Ben Chilwell.
The manager said after the match, as per The Mirror: “We had a reason for playing him – not that we were unhappy with Chilly (Ben Chilwell), absolutely not – but we opted for a bit more size, to cope with the corners from Burnley.
“I know Marcos is used to playing this role, on the left side all alone and he has a good timing for arriving in the box.
“In the end we are very happy he could score the second goal to finish the game.
“If we manage to find a starting XI that can guarantee us to win 20 in a row, we will not change it – but of course it’s very unlikely this will happen.
“It’s super-hard in selection, or maybe it’s also super-easy because I’m giving everyone the chance to show their abilities.
“But the performance itself, for me it was very complete, both defensively and offensively. We only conceded one shot, which is amazing.”
Marcos Alonso had played in only three Premier League games this season before Sunday and this rare start surely shocked a lot of experts.
A lot of rumours had already started talking about a fallout between Chilwell and the new boss but thankfully that’s not the case.
Choosing the 30-year-old was purely a tactical decision which was rewarded with a goal and it will now be interesting to see if this fine performs from Marcos Alonso is good enough to hand him another start for the Blues, in midweek when they travel across London to take on Spurs.
