Antonio Rudiger has revealed what Thomas Tuchel told the Chelsea squad at half-time to inspire the fightback against Manchester City.
Chelsea fell behind to a Raheem Sterling opener and were fortunate not to go into the dressing room two goals down after Aguero’s penalty was saved by Eduoard Mendy.
The blues looked fired up in the second half, with Hakim Ziyech’s low strike drawing the game level before Alonso scored a stoppage time winner to seal the three points for Tuchel’s side.
The result has put Chelsea in control in the race for a top-four finish with three matches left to play, although they can still qualify for Europe’s big competition regardless if they win the Champions League.
Rudiger was happy with the ‘fighting spirit’ shown by his team-mates as they came back from a goal down and he gave some insight into the the club’s dressing room at the break, where Tuchel urged his team to be calm and battle until the end.
‘It was a crazy game!’ Rudiger told the club’s official website. ‘We conceded in the last few minutes of the first half, then there was the penalty also which was saved by Edou.
‘Then we came out for the second half and we started very strong after half-time.
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‘We showed a great fighting spirit. Even the players that haven’t always played that often, they came into the team against a very strong City side and they made the difference for us and this is very important because it shows we need everyone to play their part.
‘Against a team like City, you can accept that they will have a lot of the ball. We were all clear before the game that we knew we would have moments where we would suffer. We went through that and kept working hard.
‘Other than their goal and the penalty, I don’t think they created too much. We remained focus on our game and we always believed we could create chances of our own.
‘At half-time, we were still in the game and the coach highlighted that to us. He wanted us to go out and show spirit, which we did, and we all totally believed that we could turn things around.
‘They are a very strong team but they are also human, and there will be times when they make mistakes. When that happens, you have to be ready to punish them and we did that at the end with our winning goal and it was a great feeling for everyone to get this victory.’
