Three key achievements of Thomas Tuchel as the Chelsea manager
Thomas Tuchel, the 49-year old German manager, has recently been sacked by Chelsea following the team’s shock loss to Dinamo Zagreb in a group match of the UEFA Champions League. Chelsea, who have also lost two of their six Premier League matches thus far, are currently in sixth position in the league table.
The Blues have appointed Graham Potter as their new manager as Tuchel became the fourth Chelsea manager to be sacked in the last five years. The German enjoyed a stint of a little more than one-and-a-half years at Chelsea after his appointment in January 2021.
On that note, we take a look at three key achievements of Tuchel during his stint.
Winning the Champions League with Chelsea
This has to be the icing on the cake. Winning the Champions League is something only a handful of managers have been able to do. In 2021, Tuchel became the third successive German manager to win the premier club competition in the world with Chelsea after Jurgen Klopp and Hansi Flick had achieved the same for Liverpool and Bayern Munich, respectively. Tuchel had reached the final of the Champions League with Paris Saint Germain in the 2019-20 season as well.
Chelsea beat favorites Manchester City 1-0 in the final as Kai Havertz scored the only goal of the match. It was only the second Champions League title for the Blues after they won the competition in 2012. Chelsea also overcame the mighty Real Madrid in the semifinal as Tuchel was impressive with his tactics and substitutions. N’Golo Kante was superb against Real Madrid and played well in the final. Tuchel adopted a counter-attacking strategy in the final against a City side, who enjoy having the ball on their feet, to good effect.
Changing the formation and extracting the best out of a few players
Tuchel’s predecessor Frank Lampard had primarily made his side play with four defenders, but Chelsea switched to a 3-4-3 formation under the German with great results. Tuchel used the veteran Thiago Silva, who also played under him at PSG, at the centre of the back-three and the Brazilian fully justified the decision. He was calm and composed at the heart of Chelsea’s defense with his timely tackles and interceptions and also managed to chip in with crucial goals through headers.
Tuchel also used Antonio Rudiger, the German defender, extensively in the back-three and the latter produced some lion-hearted performances for the Blues. Rudiger was absolutely world-class last season and was signed by Real Madrid at the beginning of the current season as a result. Moreover, Kante has also arguably produced his best for Chelsea under Tuchel’s tutelage. However, Rudiger’s absence has hurt Chelsea to some extent this season and Tuchel’s decision to play Reece James as one of the centre-backs has also been questioned.
Making a few quality signings for Chelsea
An important part of Tuchel’s legacy would have to be his decisions as far as new signings are concerned. Chelsea have signed Raheem Sterling, Kalidou Koulibaly, Marc Cucurella and Conor Gallagher this season and each one of them has impressed in parts thus far.
Sterling’s signing was crucial for the Blues as they needed an attacking player to replace Romelu Lukaku and Timo Werner upfront. Sterling has impressed with his skills this season and has a couple of goals and assists to his name. The same goes for Koulibaly, who displayed his defensive skills and also scored a goal and had an assist before being sent off in Chelsea’s loss to Leeds United. Cucurella has also made the left wing-back’s spot his own despite facing stiff competition from Ben Chilwell and Gallagher has shown composure and good passing range in the midfield.
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The only failure in terms of new signings that can be attributed to Tuchel is the one of Lukaku, who struggled to adjust in Chelsea’s front-three and could only score 15 goals in 44 matches in the 2021-22 season before being loaned to his former club Inter Milan at the start of the season.