Tottenham manager’s desire to win will be evident on touchline and pitch, and Blues boss knows his own passion must not get the better of him
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Tuchel previews Tottenham clash
Thomas Tuchel admits he let himself get a little too emotional during Chelsea ’s 1-1 draw with Brighton in Tuesday.
And the German is focused on doing much better against Tottenham today, even if that won’t be easy in a London derby and with another hothead, one he admires greatly, bouncing up and down in the next technical area along.
“There is no doubt I am a big fan of Antonio Conte,” said Tuchel, whose side have already met the Italian’s men twice this month in their two-legged Carabao Cup semi-final.
“What he does to teams is so obvious, it’s always clear it’s an Antonio Conte team.
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“They play always with a desire to win, always with a huge physical input and a relentless style, and he is like this on the touchline.
“Coaching his teams like this, this is how they perform.
“It’s always a pleasure to watch and I’m very proud to play against his teams.
“Now we do it for a third time.
“It doesn’t affect so much my coaching — you always need to find a good mix between emotions and a cool head, and this is on me, like it is for the players.
“It’s important to know what the game means to the supporters, it’s important to know what it means in the table, but you cannot get carried away by emotions.
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“For example on Tuesday, we got a little bit on the other side, too much involved in emotions like frustration, anger or disappointment.
“When you play a derby like this or against an emotional guy like Antonio Conte, you cannot just play from pure emotions.
“We need this and we want our supporters to be fully emotional and fully supportive.
“But I wish for myself to be cool in the decisive moments and keep a clear head.”
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Chelsea striker Romelu Lukaku will help his boss keep a clear head if he can find the target against a boss under whom he loved playing at Inter Milan.
He and Conte had a great rapport and Tuchel, unsurprisingly, has spoken to Lukaku about COnte and looked at the way he played under him in a bid to get the best out of him at Stamford Bridge.
He added: “We’ve talked about this and I’m pretty sure I know it — I watch football games and I can see where he plays, how he plays and the way Inter play.
“That’s not rocket science.
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“We had a pretty clear picture of what Romelu can do, and can offer us and our game, and how we can include him into our game, and we can clearly improve on that.”
As for Spurs striker Harry Kane, who has also struggled for goals this season, Tuchel said: “I remember when there were a lot of critics of Harry Kane at the beginning of the season.
“But he’s a goalscorer and I always thought he would come good.
“I assume he did this for his whole life — if you are a scorer at this level, you must have been scoring goals from six years old.
“You just have it — and he will never lose it — and it’s the same for Romelu.
“These guys, at the end of the season, they will have a certain amount of goals.
“Why? Because they have proved this is simply what they do.”
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