Ferdinand slams Chelsea star ‘trying to play perfect football’

Rio Ferdinand says Edouard Mendy was to blame for Chelsea’s defeat to West Ham on Saturday as he was “trying to play perfect football”.

Chelsea took the lead twice at the London Stadium but fell to their second defeat of the season against the Hammers.

Mendy had perhaps his worst game in a Chelsea shirt and was certainly at fault for West Ham’s first and perhaps could have done better with the winner.

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After Thiago Silva’s opener for the Blues, Mendy allowed West Ham back into the game as he conceded a penalty after failing to clear Jorginho’s back pass.

Jarrod Bowen put the Blues keeper under pressure with Mendy clumsily bringing the forward down in the box.

Asked whether Mendy or Jorginho were at fault for the goal, Ferdinand told BT Sport: “Mostly with the goalkeeper, he has plenty of opportunity to clear this.

“Jorginho leaves the short pass, yes it is short but the goalkeeper gets there. Clear it straight away.

“He gets another chance to clear it and takes another touch then all of a sudden its panic stations and he gives away a penalty.

“Instead of taking that touch, give a throw in away. The problem is he has been caught trying to play perfect football. In those situations, it’s not about that.”

Chelsea are now third in the Premier League after both Liverpool and Manchester City climbed above them with wins on Saturday.

And Thomas Tuchel was frustrated by “too many individual mistakes” in the loss to West Ham.

Speaking to BT Sport, the German boss said: “I don’t think we did a bad match, it was OK, we can win with this performance.

“It is tough to play here, we did too many individual mistakes, we did already against Manchester United and Watford and got punished – if you want a result at this level you have to minimise mistakes. We talked about it before, it’s obviously not helped.”

When asked about the penalty, Tuchel replied: “Everybody is involved, the pass is not the best decision, the orientation is not the best, we can save it but the decision-making is also not the best from Edu in this moment.

“We created a lot of half chances, a lot of touches in the box, but sometimes you need a bit of luck, a deflected shot or loose ball that falls to our feet. Their third one is a strange one, the two big chances they had in the first half were our mistakes.

“We could not finish it with clear and better chances, be more ruthless, we struggled also in defending some situations.

“Every loss is a bump in the road, that will not hold us back from what we demand from us but we need to play more accurate, more stable and reduce big mistakes.”

 

The post Ferdinand slams Chelsea star ‘trying to play perfect football’ appeared first on Football365.

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