Thomas Tuchel praises Chelsea display at Man City but says win ‘will not change’ Champions League final

The Blues’ win denied Man City the chance to celebrate winning the title

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Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel praised his side as the Blues battled to win 2-1 over Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium in the Premier League.

Raheem Sterling gave City the lead from close range before a Hakim Ziyech equaliser and Marcos Alonso’s last-gasp winner.

However, the German boss was keen to point out that this result hardly suggests who will triumph in the Champions League final.

“The win gives us confidence but, as I have said before, this result will not change the final. The final is a very unique game and you cannot predict what will happen.

“You need to be well prepared, we will have some changes again, they will have some changes again, but we will arrive with the knowledge that we are capable of beating City.

“This is what we have now, and this will not change until Istanbul.”

Tuchel was proud of Chelsea’s performance, and believed that Alonso’s winner was certainly deserved – even with Sergio Aguero’s missed penalty.

The Blues manager was delighted with the visitors’ outing, citing their motivation as a key factor to their win.

“What a performance in the second half. It was more or less equal in the first half, but we almost gave the game away in the last five minutes. If they scored the penalty, maybe the game would have been over before it really started. If it went to 2-0, maybe we wouldn’t have had a chance to come back.

“It was very hard, we were 1-0 down and had an injured player, I’m absolutely impressed by the performance and reaction in the second half and we deserved to win the second half. We were more confident, the goal helped us a lot and suddenly we were more physical and recovered the balls higher.

“If you want to steal all three points at the Etihad in this situation, of course you need a bit of luck, momentum, and decision from the referee but we had many chances in the second half so a big, big congratulations to the players.”