After Tuchel blamed the pitch for the defeat to Arsenal, here are the top 5 most ridiculous excuses by football coaches

Some have put it all on poor player performances with the likes of Malang Sarr, N’golo Kante and Edouard Mendy among the main culprits while others blamed the team selection for the loss.

But Chelsea’s German manager, Thomas Tuchel has a unique perspective on the reason for their third consecutive home defeat, he blamed the pitch.

Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel. AFP

Tuchel said after the game “I must say, the pitch is difficult to play here. It maybe sounds like an excuse but it is a very difficult pitch that we have here, it is not to our favour.”

So in honour of Tuchel throwing the poor Stamford Bridge groundsman under the bus, here are the most ridiculous excuses given by football coaches in recent times to justify a poor result and/or performance.

Fergie’s jersey farce

Sir Alex Ferguson ece-auto-gen

The great Sir Alex Ferguson is not impervious to ridiculous excuses himself, who would have thought. The legendary manager once blamed a Manchester United defeat on the team’s grey away jersey.

United were playing away at Southampton in April 1996, almost exactly 26 years ago and they were trailing 3-0 at halftime.

And in a bizarre turn of events, Sir Alex ordered the team to change into their other away jersey coloured blue and white. United went on to lose 3-1 but at least they won the second half in a different jersey so maybe Sir Alex did have a point.

Manchester United wore two different jerseys in the same game against Southampton in 1996 Sky Sports

Ferguson explained the incident at the end of the game, “The players don’t like the grey strip. They find it difficult to pick each other out. We had to change the strip.”

Jose emphasises the importance of ball boys

Jose Mourinho AFP

For many years, ball boys have been looked down upon and underappreciated when in fact they can affect the result of a game, well that is according to Jose Mourinho.

The legendary Portuguese manager is famous for his statements in interviews but this particular one is ridiculous, even by his standards.

“Real Madrid gave a spectacular performance from the first to the last minute. We came here to play. What I’m about to say is not a criticism, I’m just stating a fact: there were no ball-boys in the second half, which is something typical of small teams when experiencing difficulties” were the words of Mourinho as the Real Madrid after losing a Clasico away at Barcelona.

Jose Mourinho has had his fair share of disagreements with ball boys Imago

That was not the only time he would blame ball boys for a bad result either, he did so as the coach of Chelsea against Newcastle in 2014 and when he was in charge at Manchester United in 2018.

A simple exercise like googling “Mourinho blames ball boys” would reveal all of the Special One’s run-ins with ball boys, bizarre to say the least.

Alan Pardew blames the World Cup

Former Newcastle manager Alan Pardew omnisports

Alan Pardew is known for making ridiculous excuses even more than his managerial achievements but he peaked in 2014.

While in charge of Newcastle, he was asked after the 2013/14 season about his team's poor run of form in the second half of the season and Pardew’s answer was simply stunning.

“We were affected by the World Cup, there’s no doubt about that in my mind” Pardew said in June 2014 just before the World Cup started in Brazil.

To this day it remains unclear what the correlation between Newcastle and the FIFA World Cup was but Alan Pardew seems to think so.

Gordon Strachan gave Charles Darwin a run for his money

Gordon Strachan Imago

The then Scotland National team coach Gordon Strachan blamed genetics for his failure to qualify the team for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

“Genetically we are behind, in the last campaign we were the second smallest, apart from Spain,” Strachan said offering justification for his failure.

Gordon Strachan blamed lack of size in his Scottish team for their failure to qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup Imago

As if that was not bad enough, the manager went on to proffer a strange solution to what he perceived as the problem.

“We had to pick a team to combat the height and strength at set-plays. Genetically we have to work at things, maybe we get big women and men together and see what we can do,” said Strachan, he actually said that… with full knowledge of the fact that he was being recorded.

Jurgen Klopp

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp Jurgen Klopp is in no hurry to leave Anfield AFP

When it comes to excuses, no one does it better and more frequently than Jurgen Klopp, the man deserves his own segment.

Because Klopp has so many classic excuses, it was extremely difficult to choose one so we will just try to squeeze it all in here.

Klopp has blamed pitches, wind, snow, the match ball and even the TV broadcasters on multiple occasions, nobody does the “it wasn’t me” better than Jurgen, not even Shaggy.