Thomas Tuchel condemns Chelsea supporters who sang for Roman Abramovich | OneFootball

Roman Abramovich’s name was sung repeatedly by Chelsea fans today, including once during the minute of applause for the victims of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

That’s just an unbelievably crass and cruel thing to do, and when he was asked about it after the game Thomas Tuchel could do nothing but condemn the actions of a large number of his team’s support.

“It’s not the moment to do this. Listen, if we show solidarity we show solidarity and we should do it together. We take the knee together and if an important person from our club or another club unfortunately dies, we show a minute of respect. It’s not the moment to give other messages. It’s the moment to show respect.

“We do this because this is what we are also as a club. We show respect as a club and we need our fans to commit to this minute of applause. At this moment, we do it for Ukraine and there is no second opinion about the situation there. They have our thoughts and our support.

We should stand together as a club. It’s not the moment for other messages.” said the Blues boss in quotes picked up by Football.London.

Let’s hope we don’t see it repeated. It was an embarrassing moment for the club, rightly met with disgusted boos from the Burnley supporters.

Tuchel, as always, is put in an immensely difficult position by the fact that nobody above him at the club is ever there to speak about the big picture, and once again he’s done heroically well here in the circumstances.

Let’s hope our fans in the weeks to come will spare him from repeating this embarrassment.