“We don’t have to go to Madrid, we have to go Southampton and it is very important to process this,” Tuchel told BT Sport. “It is crucial that we go to Southampton. If we keep playing like this we will lose at Southampton and then we will get hammered at the Bernabeu.
“It is a heavy loss. It was one of the worst first halves that I saw from us here at Stamford Bridge. Individually and as a team it was by far not enough. It was far from our standards and then you lose games.
“Passing, where we passed, how we passed, when we passed, when we attacked, the ball possession game… first half was so from any standards that we set ourselves that we cannot complain when we lose.”
Tuchel repeatedly told reporters that, as it stands, there was no way back for the Blues.
Quizzed on whether that was a poor message to send his team, he said: “If you want to put it on this sentence, put it on this sentence.
“I worry more about Southampton than I worry about Real Madrid in the next week. There is my focus. Today, is this alive? No. Not with this performance. First of all we need to play Southampton and if we don’t get our heads straight and mentality right we will not win in Southampton. And then this tie is not alive.
“If things change, maybe, but how many clubs in worldwide football won with three goals difference? How often did this happen? So maybe we should be realistic and should not get fatalistic and think that I give the wrong message. Let’s be honest. We are competitive and need to find our competitive spirit and our quality and then we can hope.”