Arsene Wenger says Chelsea face a “psychological problem” ahead of their Champions League semi-final second leg against Real Madrid.
Christian Pulisic’s solo effort put Chelsea in front in the first leg on Tuesday before Karim Benzema’s equaliser secured a 1-1 draw for Madrid.
The result means Chelsea have an away goal advantage heading into the second leg at Stamford Bridge, but Wenger believes Zinedine Zidane’s side could benefit from the clarity of the task ahead of them.
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“What is interesting in the Champions League is that you always have in the second game a psychological problem to sort out,” Wenger told beIN Sports.
“If you’re the manager of Chelsea now you go home tonight and you have to convince your players to adopt a strategy in the second game.
“So I say, will you try to get 0-0 or will you try to win the game.”
Asked what he would do if he were Chelsea manager, Wenger replied: “I would try to win the game.
“Because Madrid is in a different situation psychologically. They go to Chelsea and even if they score a goal it doesn’t change too much, they just play.
“You are always be in trouble when the way to behave is not clear. Because the lack of clarity gets the players in between two [mindsets].
“For Madrid they have one advantage – they are clear, they know what to do for the second leg.”
Thomas Tuchel told BT Sport after the game that his side “did not allow” Madrid any chances and they should have scored at least once more:
“We started the game very very well, with a lot of courage and quality,” Tuchel said. “We deserved to win the first half, we had chances. Unfortunately they scored from a set-piece and they had nothing else, we didn’t allow any chances.
“It was a disappointing score at half time. We had to stay calm and not lose confidence. The second half was very tactical, you could feel that we are a bit tired. We only had a few days to recover from another tough away game. We have to live with 1-1.
“The goal was well deserved and we should have scored at least one more. We conceded more or less out of nothing and that can always happen against individual quality.”
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