Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel believes the recent wins over Manchester City will give his team plenty of confidence going into the Champions League final but the German is expecting a fresh challenge from Pep Guardiola and his players.
Chelsea claimed a dramatic 2-1 Premier League win at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday as Marcos Alonso scored the winner in injury time. Raheem Sterling opened the scoring in the first half and the hosts had the chance to double their advantage just before the break, only for Sergio Aguero's Panenka-style penalty to be easily saved by Edouard Mendy.
Hakim Ziyech levelled for Chelsea in the second half before Alonso turned in Timo Werner's low cross in the dying stages. The win moved Chelsea up to third in the Premier League table while delaying City's title celebrations a little longer.
It was Chelsea's second victory over City in three weeks following last month's FA Cup semi-final win and the London club are unbeaten in their last seven games in all competitions.
"It's best to have consecutive good performances that lead to results," said Tuchel. "The group and the players do everything to force the luck on our side, and we caught the momentum to have another big win.
"It increases our self-confidence in a natural and healthy way because everybody knows we have to restart on Wednesday (against Arsenal in the league)."
Tuchel will face Guardiola's side again later this month when they play the Champions League final on May 29. However, the two teams will be much different to the ones that lined up on Saturday. City made nine changes from their semi-final second leg win over Paris Saint-Germain, while Chelsea made five.
"The final is a very unique game and you cannot predict what will happen," Tuchel said. "You need to be well prepared, we will have some changes again, they will have some changes again, but we will arrive with the knowledge we are capable of beating City."
Arguably the biggest turning point in Saturday's match came when Aguero missed the penalty that would have given City a 2-0 lead going into halftime, and the Argentine has publicly apologised for his decision to chip the ball.
"I would like to apologise to my teammates, staff and supporters for missing the penalty," City's all-time top scorer Aguero tweeted. "It was a bad decision and I take full responsibility."
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