Thomas Tuchel – Despite the exciting reputation, time waits for no-one.
As it is these days and just a little over 24-hours since the news of the sacking of Frank Lampard, Chelsea confirmed Thomas Tuchel had been...
Time waits for no-man as we have seen of late and levels of expectation placed on managers increases from one season to the next. There is no sentiment involved in our game anymore and football is a ruthless results business. Every club has targets placed on their manager and each of them is well aware that if results turn over a period their future could be called into question. It’s good to see that at the moment, Chris Wilder has managed to hold on to his job despite Sheffield United’s poor opening to the season.
So, what of Thomas Tuchel at Chelsea and the problems he faces within these first few weeks with games coming thick and fast with the hectic Premier League, FA Cup, and Champions League schedules coming up.
The first issue is time as with any new appointment made halfway through a season. The problem at the moment is that with games coming every three to four days, Tuchel will have little time to embed his philosophy and get the message to the players. If anything, they are going to have to learn and adapt live in-game with Tuchel giving ongoing guidance from the side-lines.
Based on that, knowing what we do about the Chelsea board is that there will be a short period of grace to do so with many choosing to avoid betting on Chelsea and spending their money at jeux de casino instead, but at the same time performances need to show improvement with results also. We are halfway through the season and can ill-afford losing further ground to the race for the top four. Despite it being revealed that a top-four finish was deemed as not good enough for Frank Lampard, it has to be the minimum for Thomas Tuchel this time around.
Chelsea sits within striking distance and a couple of wins with the way this season is going with sporadic results on a week-to-week basis, there is excitement about the impact a fresh approach should have to galvanise the squad with the manager coming to Chelsea with a big reputation.
One of the criticisms of the previous management to the point when he left was that there was no real identity to the team, no indication of the strongest eleven, and the defined tactical approach despite the fact that at no point this season did we have everyone fully fit to be selected.
Tuchel comes to Chelsea with a reputation to be a forwarding thinking manager with a flexible approach to how he set’s his teams up tactically. The requirements to gegenpress and counter-press to win the ball high in the opponents’ half is a standard but to be brave in possession and play attacking football. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the coming weeks to see how he can adapt to the rigors and demands of the Premier League.