LONDON: Thomas Tuchel is set to be named Chelsea manager on Tuesday several years after he first spoke with the Premier League giants about the job.
The 47-year-old German replaces the sacked Frank Lampard and will be the 15th change of manager since Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich bought the club in 2003.
Tuchel follows some noteworthy predecessors in Jose Mourinho and Carlo Ancelotti, who have also fallen foul of Abramovich in the past — the Italian was fired a season after delivering the domestic double.
Lampard, Chelsea’s record goalscorer, discovered that sentiment is not part of Abramovich’s DNA as he dispensed with the Englishman on Monday after just 18 months in charge.
Whilst Lampard expressed his disappointment, Tuchel’s task will be to get the best out of the £200 million ($300 million) of talent that was brought in in the close season, including young German attackers Timo Werner and Kai Havertz.
Tuchel is well-versed in the school of hard knocks of being a manager having been sent packing at the end of December despite guiding Paris Saint-Germain to the Champions League final just four months earlier.
His falling out with PSG sporting director Leonardo played a large part in that and his habit of fractious relations with his employers does not bode well for his prospects at a club with such a famously impatient owner.
He will need to maintain good relations with the all-powerful director Marina Granovskaia if he too is not to suffer the same fate as his predecessors.
“Tuchel will be exposed to exactly the same rules as Frank’’, said Lampard’s former England team-mate Gary Neville.
“We’ll be talking about him being let go in the next 18 months to two years, I’m pretty sure of that.”
Tuchel’s ambition has always been to manage a Premier League club, like fellow his German and also one of his predecessors as Borussia Dortmund coach, Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp. He did hold talks with Chelsea over replacing Antonio Conte after he left Dortmund in 2017 but while he impressed Granovskaia he ended up at PSG. — AFP
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