Thomas Tuchel has poured cold water on suggestions Christian Pulisic is not happy at Chelsea after the player's father vented on Twitter about his son's 'sad situation'.
In a now-deleted post, Pulisic's father suggested he could leave with a 'big six months ahead', despite his love for 'his club, team-mates and London'.
When asked about the situation at his press conference on Friday, Tuchel was quick to dampen speculation and insisted he and the players have no issues.
'I am not concerned if the player's father says he does not love me [on Twitter],' Tuchel laughed. 'It's a normal thing [for a player to be frustrated]. We have our reasons to go for players in the first XI.
'You will never see happy faces from players who are not selected. With me and Christian, there is zero problem. In some matches he has a huge impact from the bench. I didn't even know [about his dad's tweet]. It has nothing to do with it.
'The players are responsible for being in the team and staying in the team. Am I always right? For sure, not. Is it always fair? For sure, not. The reaction from Christian has been the opposite, he's very strong, very positive in the last weeks.'
Pulisic played just 22 minutes against Everton, 19 against Manchester United prior to that, and just 14 against West Ham on the Sunday before - although he did score the late winner in that match.
The American last played a full 90 minutes against Burnley on March 5 - a game that he scored, assisted and was awarded man of the match - but he has since fallen down the pecking order at Stamford Bridge.
One problem that Pulisic faces is that Tuchel often opts to play with a three at the back formation without any wingers.
Aside from the Pulisic conundrum, Tuchel revealed some team news ahead of his side's game against Wolves at the weekend, confirming that both Ngolo Kante and Jorginho will miss the match.
Of the battle for top-four, he noted: 'We would rather not be in the [race] but we are.
'We need another reaction. That's where we are. We had a week to prepare which was nice, but not nice because we prefer to play Champions League. We want elite behaviour, this includes me... we have to step up.'
fourthorty430
380
Pulisic's dad should relax his nerves.. Should every player's father start complaining about their sons being benched, 14 fathers out of 25 would have been ranting by now... Pulisic is still playing with the team a bit, some are not playing at all.. Let the coach decides not the father to a player..
Satbdimo
287
Pulisic's father who happens to be one of his fans is just concerned for his son on social media much the same as all other fans of the thousands of players in the football leagues around the world. The social media is exactly for that, ie communicating with friends about social concerns etc. The problem is whoever brought that to Tuchel and converted it into a complaint. Our fathers always ask about how we are managing at work and pass comments without anyone taking those comments to report them to our places of work. How different is this from Pulisic's father and his concerns. Media people should stop creating mountains out of molehills.
samlegxzy
22
Pulisic is a lazy dude, he always fall on the ground even if he pass from 10 meters. How can you play a player who can't even fight upfront. we all watched how havert has stepped up his game and physicality even big defenders are scared of him. You have to be strong and technical to play in EPL 🙄. same thing as Ziyech