Tuchel not thinking about Haaland or another striker this summer

Martin Macdonald

• Updated: 19 May 2021 15:43 BST
• 2 min read

Thomas Tuchel insists that it is not the right time to be talking about potential summer recruits at Chelsea, despite continued speculation over a move for Borussia Dortmund striker Erling Haaland.

The former Paris Saint-Germain head coach has been a revelation since taking over from Frank Lampard at Stamford Bridge, overseeing an unbeaten run that has put the Blues back in contention to finish in the Champions League spots.

However, goalscoring remains a problem for Chelsea as their top scorers in the Premier League this season are Jorginho and Tammy Abraham with just six each.

Star signing Timo Werner has just five, with Olivier Giroud on four.

Though both Lampard and Tuchel have continually chopped and changed their forward line, there has been a general feeling that the squad is missing a world-class number nine to take them to the next level.

That naturally led to rumours circulating about a potential swoop for Haaland, who has taken European football by storm with his goalscoring exploits for RB Salzburg and now Dortmund

What has Tuchel said about summer signings?

Tuchel refused to be drawn in on the speculation, though, and democratically says that he is focused on the players he has for the moment.

“It is not time to reflect for the summer and other solutions, other than what we have,” he said when asked about the summer transfer window.

“We have guys that we are happy with and are looking for more solutions; we will try to help them.

“In general, I am happy because we don’t only look at the output in how they score and assist. Of course, this is a statistic in which every striker is attached to and everyone has to have the mentality to cope with the statistic. It is like this at high-level football.

“We are still waiting for a breakthrough for the guys to be on a run to score consistently, it is not the case. We will never stop pushing and looking for solutions to create even more clear chances for them. That’s the way it is.”

If Chelsea do have an interest in Haaland for a summer transfer, they face competition from just about every other elite side in Europe.

Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester United, Manchester City, and Bayern Munich have all registered an interest in the prolific Norwegian, who has a release clause at Dortmund which can be triggered in the summer of 2022.