Thomas Tuchel’s brutal assessment of Romelu Lukaku’s performance after Crystal Palace win

Hakim Ziyech scored a last-gasp winner at Selhurst Park to help Chelsea to their first away win in the league since Boxing Day.

The three points has kept the Blues in third place, but most importantly seven points ahead of Manchester United in fourth place.

Chelsea now have 50 points after 25 games, but are a massive 14 behind Manchester City.

Romelu Lukaku’s record number of touches in the game

Despite Chelsea’s win, it was another frustrating afternoon for club record signing Romelu Lukaku, who made the headlines for another poor showing.

With injuries and a mountain of games to go through, Thomas Tuchel switched the system from the regular 5-3-2 to 4-3-3 with the Belgian striker the focal point, but he only had two touches of the ball in the first half.

He improved slightly in the second half, with five more touches and has now only scored one league goal in his last eight games.

Lukaku has five league goals and his brilliant start to his second spell at Chelsea feels like a lifetime ago.

Thomas Tuchel was asked what he thought of his striker’s performance during the press conference and his response was quite telling.

The German manager said: “I’m not so sure if I have a good answer.

“I don’t know what it says. It says he was obviously not involved and could not make a point today.

“I am not sure if it says so much about us in general.”

The Champions League winning manager was more entertaining when assessing his team’s overall performance on the day, pointing to the travelling and the number of games they have had to get through.

He added: “I have to stay calm now. How a week like this works, we come from a 30-degree temperature difference.

“We have six players with a cold from the AC in the plane, we have jet lag from Abu Dhabi.

“We have no player who slept well in Abu Dhabi because of the temperature and the time difference. So it’s the same here.”