‘Help your team’: Tuchel claims Chelsea’s £22m player really needs to ‘stay calm’ in the coming weeks

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Thomas Tuchel has urged Chelsea’s Edouard Mendy to “stay calm” after his recent mistake and hopes it doesn’t damage his confidence.

Blues goalkeeper Mendy, 30, has been one of his team’s outstanding players during Tuchel’s reign as manager. However, the £22million shot-stopper made a crucial error in his most recent performance.

Chelsea were beaten 3-1 by Real Madrid earlier in the week at Stamford Bridge in a Champions League quarter-final first leg.

Mendy gifted Madrid their crucial third goal when he lost possession outside of the box, which eventually lead to Karim Benzema stroking into an empty net for his hat-trick.

The result means it’s a mammoth task for the Blues to overturn the two-goal deficit in next week’s second leg against Madrid in Spain.

Tuchel delivered some interesting comments when asked about Mendy in today’s press conference:

“In any match it is bad timing to do a mistake like this but in a quarter-final, an occasion like this against Real Madrid is one of the worst moments you can do it. It is so obvious. I hope it does not affect his self-confidence too much,” Tuchel said.

“This is what goalkeeping is also about, to accept mistakes and live with his mistakes and go back and help your team with performance, focus, re-focus, stay calm, stay confident. This is normally what goalkeepers, what Edou is made of. Now he can prove he is a true champion.”

Chelsea learn nothing new

In fairness, it’s no secret that Mendy’s footwork is not the strongest area of his game.

The Senegal international has shown massive improvements in playing out from the back if you compare what he’s like now from when he first joined from Rennes.

It was just unfortunate he flopped at such a pivotal moment, though.

He’s been one of the world’s elite keepers for over a year now, so it shouldn’t be too hard for him to move past Wednesday’s blip.

There’s no doubt he’s saved this Chelsea side far more times than he’s let them down.

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