How will Thomas Tuchel change Chelsea FC
The past four days have been really difficult at Stamford Bridge, London. After a series of disappointing performances which was leading to no clear path for Chelsea Football Club, the Board of the London-based club parted ways with player legend turned manager Frank Lampard. Lampard was Chelsea’s third manager in the space of 4 years — a record that only the Blues can boast of, in the English Premier League. The Management of the English club is reckoned as one of the most ruthless top level hierarchy, not only in Europe but in the entire world.
For the supporters and fans worldwide, it was a tough pill to swallow. On one hand, was their legend who had carried the club on his back for 14 years. On the other was the fate of their team who had just been reinvigorated using a 200 million investment in the transfer market. As the downpour of fans’ tributes to Super Frank Lampard continued, the Board was busy finalizing some contracts in Germany. A new manager was coming.
Not later than 12 hours after the news of Lampard’s sacking broke in, the announcement of Thomas Tuchel as the new head coach was made by the club on all of its social media platforms. There were mixed responses to the same. While some of them deemed the appointment as a panic move just to fill out the job role, others were excited about the times ahead revolving around a master tactician that Tuchel is called in various parts of Germany and France.
Well, Tuchel went straight to Cobham, Chelsea’s state of the art training facility, after signing his contract with the club’s officials — as he had less than 48 hours to prepare for one of the top upcoming sides in England, Wolves. Let alone the preparation, he just had 1 proper training session with his new squad to get used to how things pan out in the blue half of London. But it seems, he did well.
The Blues managed to create history in Tuchel’s first game in-charge as they played 820 passes and maintained a possession of 79% in the 90 minutes at the Bridge. But failure to capitalize on the umpteen number of chances created led to a lackluster 0–0 draw on Wednesday night. Nevertheless, the game gave out enough to conclude how Tuchel would want his Chelsea side to play the rest 18 games of the season.
In today’s piece, we try to paint a picture of the changes that Tuchel will bring to Chelsea and how it would impact the club — both positively and negatively.
Winning the battle of the midfield
During his Borussia Dortmund and Paris Saint-Germain days, Thomas Tuchel was known for deploying his lineup in such a manner that the role of the midfield becomes pivotal to the success of his squad. The classic example of the same was Julian Weigl at Dortmund. The midfielder, who was banished after Tuchel left the Black and Yellow, was the centre-piece of Tuchel’s tactics at the Bundesliga club. He maintained a great deep lying role just ahead of the back-line and conducted the game from that very position.
Rings something familiar?
Yup, that’s what Jorginho was for Maurizio Sarri during the Italian gaffer’s reign at Chelsea a few years back. Since Sarri has left, the Brazilian-born regista has been out of favour under Frank Lampard. But under Tuchel, things are expected to change and the revolution has begun already. Tuchel’s first lineup saw him deploy Jorginho in the centre alongside Mateo Kovacic, with the Italian international perfectly mastering the Weigl role for his new manager.
Jorginho was Pep Guardiola’s recommendatory signing at Manchester City, but Chelsea scooped the ex-Napoli man under their noses. Guardiola’s interest in the man defines how good he can be in any team in this world — regulating the tempo of his team, maintaining the structure of the team around him and spraying passes from the back. Tuchel is definitely going to focus on making the Chelsea midfield one of the best in England in the coming six months.
Intensity — Tuchel’s key-word
“I give my players 5–7 seconds to win the ball back…” This was Thomas Tuchel’s first few lines from his tactical analysis post yesterday’s dominant display against Wolves. He also added that Chelsea’s 16 recoveries in the final third impressed him as this is exactly what he wants from his team — be it in Germany, France or England.
In the coming weeks and months, we can expect Chelsea to be a high-pressing side. This is something Tuchel has learnt from Jurgen Klopp, having replaced the Liverpool boss at both Mainz and Dortmund. The new Chelsea coach has also been very vocal about adapting Klopp’s philosophy with a Guardiola inspiration by enabling his team to not only press high but also create chances after winning the ball in the mid or final third.
In the draw against Wolverhampton Wanderers, both the Chelsea full-backs almost played a wing-back role to mark the opposition wingers right into their own half as the other Chelsea personnel cut down the supply from the middle except for the one chance Pedro Neto had in the second half. Tuchel would have been proud about how quickly the players adapted to his methodology and ideology with just 1–2 training sessions together.
It will be interesting to see if the intensity dies down by the end of the season or it brings enough results to motivate the Blues to give more and more on the pitch every weekend.
A mix of experience and youth
The one thing which went wrong for Lampard was his own achievement. In the 2019–20 season which was Lampard’s first season in-charge, Chelsea faced a transfer ban. This led to the club recalling various loan players, fondly known as Chelsea’s loan army, and Lampard built a great squad around the 25 men. This was probably something which had never been done in the history of Chelsea and even the Premier League. A huge achievement for the English manager.
But at the arrival of the new season, Lampard’s signings also involved bringing in another set of young talent from various parts of Europe. This led to a disproportionate age group at Cobham. Naturally, Lampard set up his formation week-in week-out with the use of only youth talent giving debuts around to many academy as well as incoming youngsters. When you want to challenge for the title, this strategy always makes you fall on the face. And that’s what has happened.
Chelsea’s performance dropped as the inexperience came to the fore. There were prodigies in the camp, but no match-winners really. Hence, the slaughtering of Lampard.
With Tuchel though, comes a manager who has enough experience to know that managing a side to a title-winning season involves a good mix of young and old players. This was also evident in the fact that Tuchel’s first lineup saw the likes of Olivier Giroud, Cesar Azpilicueta, Mateo Kovacic, Jorginho, Thiago Silva — all starting the game for the Blues. It worked as Chelsea finally looked like a side which meant business.
This will surely count a lot as the team travels to Burnley 4 days later, as the Clarets are known as another frustrating side to break down — thanks to their disciplined and structured style of play. Nevertheless, it’s Tuchel time at Chelsea and with a manager who led PSG to the Champions League final last year at helm, the supporters should be really excited about the times ahead.