Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel says he's proud of his players for the way they've fought to stay in the title race after losing senior teammates.

After defeat at Manchester City, Tuchel was asked after the game if he feels his squad needs reinforcing with new additions during the transfer window.

Tuchel said, "I think we just need our whole squad. Our team is a strong team, and even now on Saturday it was a strong team.

Tuchel shows his frustration on the touchline

"Was Liverpool able to compete last year for the title? No. Maybe the only real difference was that they were missing Virgil van Dijk. I've said it many times, key players are key players because they are key in everything that they do and everything in how they behave."

Tuchel also insists he won't hear criticism of his squad.

He continued: "To compete, to do what we want to do and what we did on Saturday also for 90 minutes, we need everybody and we struggle from long-term injuries, we struggle from covid. This is the circumstances and still we are reliable and still we push ourselves and still we will not make a big thing of it. It is just to explain the situation.

"As you saw on Saturday we still believe in ourselves and that we can come up with a performance that can hurt even Manchester City. We did and like I've said many times before if we play the same game again, maybe we get a draw and it would not be completely undeserved."