As one of the players involved in Chelsea’s 3-0 defeat on our previous visit to Bramall Lane back in July, Reece James was taking nothing for granted when we played the Premier League’s bottom club Sheffield United on Sunday evening. This time the Blues returned to London with a much more favourable result and three points that move us up to fifth in the table.
In the wake of the victory, James spoke about the team’s rapid reaction to conceding an equaliser in the second half, about Timo Werner’s influence and about Jorginho’s penalty, which proved to be his second winning goal by that method in the space of four days. It was also a return closer to his previous technique than the one at Tottenham, which in the wake of three earlier misses this season was taken in a very different and more conventional style.‘He Jorginho works very hard and practises a lot and that is showing in games,’ the right wing-back said on the midfielder’s spot-kick success, before moving on to Timo Werner’s impact on the game.‘His time is coming. He is working very hard and he was involved in two goals so it is not like he is not contributing. Two of his contributions helped get the win.
‘In football, sometimes mistakes and strange things happen but we reacted well [to the own-goal equaliser] and we managed to get a penalty.‘We knew coming to Sheffield United was going to be a tough game. Last year they showed they are a very strong team and we knew we had to give 100 per cent to come away with the win.’
James finished his summing up with some words on the early days under Thomas Tuchel.‘From the minute he came in he made his style of play very evident and clear and I think we have taken that on board very well, and you can probably see that we look like we are playing better as a team as well.’