Chelsea midfielder Ruben Loftus-Cheek said he could not believe they lost to West Ham after being in control as he rues costly individual mistakes.
The Blues have dropped to third after the 3-2 defeat on Saturday while Manchester City and Liverpool managed to pick up three points.
Thomas Tuchel’s men still dominated the possession of the ball and created more chances than the hosts, as expected. It is just that their defence was uncharacteristically unreliable.
They conceded more than half of their total conceded goals in the league this season in the last three games. Two of them directly resulted from individual mistakes.
Even Loftus-Cheek, who started in midfield alongside Jorginho at the weekend, admitted that he did not see it coming.
“I thought we played really well in the first half, and we were in control of the game,” the midfielder said after the game (via Chelsea’s official website).
“Even in the second half, I felt in control for the majority of it so it’s confusing coming off thinking how we’ve lost that given how dominant we felt.
“We just have the feeling of ‘how can we play like that and lose?’
“We’ve come to a tough stadium to play in, taken control of the game and at half-time, we’re thinking we just need to do that again.
“If we play like that the chances are we’ll score more, but the second half was slightly different, so it’s a bit confusing really.”
Chelsea need ‘better concentration’, says Loftus-Cheek
Loftus-Cheek, however, is still confident that they can turn the corner, considering how dominant they were despite the result.
“The one thing that’s hurt us recently is individual mistakes and lapses of concentration, so it’s nothing about the way we’re playing,” he added.
“We’re dominating games the majority of the time, so I’m sure we’re just in a phase that we need to snap out of very quickly.
“We need to have better concentration because we want to get points from games like this, especially when we dominate games.”
Chelsea are dealing with several key injuries at the moment but are particularly short-staffed in midfield.
In the post-match press conference, Tuchel clarified it remains unclear when N’Golo Kante will recover from his knee injury.
Mateo Kovacic also remains out with a hamstring problem, while Jorginho has also been playing through hip pain.
It is safe to say that Loftus-Cheek will play a prominent role in the team, at least for the next weeks.
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