Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel explained dropping Romelu Lukaku for their Champions League win against Lille last night.
The £97.5million striker was axed for the 2-0 win over Lille on Tuesday night after his now infamous performance against Crystal Palace on Saturday - during which he took just seven touches of the ball.
"This was not the moment after the match where everybody was focused on the few touches he had to put him right away into the next fire," said Tuchel.
"It was the moment to take a step back. That was the decision and you can clearly see we had a strong win but almost every question is about Romelu. The focus is huge.
"There are nine other players that didn't play and we should never forget it is a team sport. I think he was tired, a little bit exhausted, lot of extra time, lot of travelling like some of the players.
"The focus was today on intensity, a high speed game and also hard work on the ball and off the ball.
"To have intense team work, and Romelu struggled in the last games to deliver that. That's what I mean when I said tired. Not only physically tired but mentally tired."
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