Here’s Jacob Steinberg on Tuchel as a tactician and coach:

One of Thomas Tuchel’s old bosses calls him a “footballaholic”. The image is of a man who spends every minute of every day poring over the game’s tactical intricacies. No wonder Tuchel quickly made good on his promise to turn Chelsea into a team that nobody would relish playing after inheriting a broken unit from Frank Lampard in January 2021.

They were champions of Europe four months later, stunning Pep Guardiola and Manchester City in a tense final in Porto after perfectly carrying out Tuchel’s plan. It was a remarkable achievement. Chelsea were flailing in mid-table when the German who has agreed to be England’s next manager took over. They were shipping goals at an alarming rate. Undeterred, Tuchel immediately ironed out the flaws and introduced a 3-4-2-1 system that turned Chelsea into the stingiest team in Europe.

The full article here.

For those that are arguing that Tuchel has a prickly character, I think it’s worth remembering his statement when leaving Chelsea. It was heartfelt and honest when it could easily have been vindictive and bitter.

“This is one of the most difficult statements I have ever had to write – and it is one which I hoped I would not need to do for many years. I am devastated that my time at Chelsea has come to an end. This is a club where I felt at home, both professionally and personally. Thank you so much to all the staff, the players and the supporters for making me feel very welcome from the start.

“This is a club where I felt at home, both professionally and personally. Thank you so much to all the staff, the players and the supporters for making me feel very welcome from the start.”

In hindsight sacking Tuchel was a huge mistake with the Blues since struggling under Graham Potter, Frank Lampard and (to a lesser extent) Mauricio Pochettino.

This made me laugh.

Press conference scheduled for 1.30pm BST

“Can somebody explain why he is so disliked in Germany?” emails Michael Abbott.

First off, I’m not sure that dislike is the right phrase. Remember that Germany’s biggest club, Bayern Munich, wanted to keep him as manager last season, but ultimately Tuchel walked. He is certainly well respected in his homeland and so nearly beat Real Madrid in the Champions League semi-final last season.

It’s true, though, that he’s not Germany’s No 1 son. Tuchel has managed in Germany with Mainz, Dortmund and Bayern, but the majority of the silverware he has won has been in England and France. His stewardship at Bayern and Dortmund (post-Klopp) was often fraught.

An excerpt from Barney Ronay’s piece.

With Tuchel now on the verge, it seems the current executive are in fact close to an objectively impressive piece of recruitment. While objectivity has never really had much place around here, Tuchel will represent a significant departure in two obvious ways.

For starters, this would be the first time the FA has appointed a coach who has worked in England and won the European Cup. Fabio Capello had the second of these, and undertook the first with all the infectious enthusiasm of a man cleaning out a particularly noxious cat litter tray. Don Revie and Bobby Robson won European trophies. Sven-Göran Eriksson hoovered up some high-spec silverware.

But Tuchel is something more specific. This is a former Uefa men’s coach of the year, who led two clubs to the final of the Champions League in three years. Plus, of course, alongside quite a few misses, he has that obvious recent major final victory, achieved with an English team, or at least one containing three English players in the squad for the final.

If the idea is to retain the possession-centred systems football of the England DNA years, while infusing this with some knowledge of how to actually win big games in the saddle; if being sacked for failing to appreciate Todd Boehly’s Monopoly-on-acid vision of team building can be considered in retrospect a massive tick; then Tuchel fits the job description very well.

Read the full article here.

What we know so far

Preamble