Romelu Lukaku cut a dejected figure on the substitutes’ bench on Sunday afternoon as his Chelsea team slipped to a 1-0 defeat against Everton at Goodison Park.
The Toffees took the lead early in the second half when Richarlison pounced on a mistake from Cesar Azpilicueta and calmly beat Edouard Mendy to send the fans into raptures.
Despite his team's need for a focal point in attack, Tuchel snubbed Lukaku and threw on wingers Pulisic and Hakim Ziyech midway through the second half in search of an equaliser.
The Chelsea boss had been forced into a change at the break with Mateo Kovavic replacing the injured Jorginho and Tuchel said it was that alteration that cost Lukaku any playing time against one of his old sides.
Asked why he was consigned to a place among the replacements, Tuchel said: ‘Because we had to take Jorgi off and we only had three changes.’
Chelsea have now taken just one point from their last three games and having looked like they were nailed on to finish in third place, both north London clubs are now close and could yet overhaul the Blues.
‘It is disappointing because over the last four matches we don’t have enough points for what we want and it is concerning,’ said Tuchel.
‘We have one clean sheet over the last four matches and it is far too easy to score against us. We can’t stop doing individual mistakes. We struggle to have repetitive top performances. Today was an OK performance but OK is not enough.
‘We conceded in the first minute of the second half and it becomes more difficult,. The way we gave this goal away was absolutely unnecessarily. If we keep on giving goals away it ends up in the results we have had recently.
‘We were not on the highest level. We trusted the team. Maybe we could have changed more. That is something I will reflect on personally.’
