Injuries, Covid infections, the cursed month of December and a reckless player interview by a senior player who should know better have combined to expose the very well hidden Achilles heel of Chelsea by the best manager of the world Thomas Tuchel. It wasn’t that this Chelsea squad which Tuchel took over from Frank Lampard a year ago had no weakness. In fact they have a history of being described by the two previous managers before Thomas Tuchel as “a difficult team to motivate” according to Maurizio Sarri. And this position was well confirmed by Chelsea legend and former coach Frank Lampard who even went further to add that they are not a team ready to challenge for the big titles. When Thomas Tuchel took over, the very problems the team had which included defensive vulnerability and their inability to see games through were pretty clear to everyone and these were summed up by the 9th position of the team on the league table. So what changed for a team with these weaknesses to then go on and win the Champions League in an impressive style and produce one of the meanest defensive records in the tournament’s history? Thomas Tuchel.
It was the German tactician who turned a Fiat to Ferrari, a Pebble to diamond, a wood to gold and a Chelsea season that was heading down the drain (as one of the worst since 2015/16), to an absolute pinnacle of football glory. What the UEFA and FIFA Men’s coach of the year did within a short period of 4 months is nothing short of pure wizardry.
Since the last time Chelsea won back-to-back Premier League titles under Jose Mourinho in 2004/5 and 2005/6, the club hardly follows up glorious seasons with another. Ancelotti’s second season after winning the double ended up getting him the sack in the tunnels at Goodison Park; Roberto Di Matteo could’t last beyond November, and even Jose Mourinho who once mustered a back-to-back season success failed spectacularly to replicate it in his second stint after winning the 2015 league title. Antonio Conte’s second season after winning the league was more of a war of attrition which landed him the sack. The point about this is that Chelsea have the history of being the most difficult Club to build upon success. Some have blamed this on the hierarchy of the club in charge of player recruitment that they fail to build on from a position of strength like City do and rather wait for the team to be in an absolute or emergency need of refreshment before strengthening it, hence the club can’t replicate success consecutively.
After winning the Champions League, Tuchel asked for three positions to be strengthened, however, like the typical way the club is run, we gave him one (Romelu Lukaku), who later will go on to invite unnecessary attention to himself and the team by granting a needless press interview. The season started with difficult fixtures for Chelsea but they were able to overcome and put themselves on top of the league table for the best part of 3-4 months. Even doubters began to tip Chelsea as a genuine title contender. Clean sheets after clean sheets and goals coming from all parts of the team – wingbacks getting themselves into the box like strikers and shooting like a “horse”; Centre Backs taking turns to poke in some good headers. Even Christensen scored a fantastic volley in the UCL to register his first goal. The young Chalobah scored on his debut and nicked another one against Juventus. Silva and Rudiger were certainly not left out – scoring and at the same winning us penalties. Those were certainly good times. They were uncharacteristic of a Chelsea side that had won a major title the previous season, they looked more hungry to win than complacent or downing tools. Thomas Tuchel had galvanized a hungry looking team ready for war.
Then the injuries struck, covid infections spiraled and results started going against us. The month of December had become a difficult month to win a Premier League game and more painful was the fact that we were throwing away points at Stamford Bridge, our fortress. Our fixtures increased and even when we had recorded about 7 cases of Covid infections among our first team, the Premier League turned down our request to get a match postponed. The team with all the injuries and Covid cases have gone on to play the highest number of matches while some rival clubs got time off even for false positive cases. In all these, the media have been quiet about such difficult circumstances the club is coping with without giving excuses. Rather they have started firing darts into the Chelsea camp and looking to break the very team spirit that led the team to the Champions League success. When you ask the Chelsea players the secret of our Champions League success they say “We played like brothers” and fought for each other. Brothers are each others keeper and they watch the back of one another. This is the team spirit Thomas Tuchel has forged aside his tactical astuteness.
It started with Romelu Lukaku telling the Italian journos he doesn’t like how he is being used by the coach, that was clearly a breach of the code of ‘brotherhood’ the foundation on which the team used to win the Champions league. By that single action, he had exposed the close-nit group to the media who were waiting to find something bad about Tuchel’s reign at Chelsea. Lukaku had given them the exact arms they needed. So even when Tuchel had dealt with it in the best possible way to kill any possible escalations, the media had their own plans. They moved from Lukaku not being happy with his role in the team to the “forwards” of Chelsea not being happy with how Tuchel is “treating them”. A coach who always defends his players against media and fans criticism is now the subject of being the one badly treating his players. In the week Ziyech scored his goal against Brighton and muted his celebration, it was quickly twisted as a show of unhappiness with his coach and when he and Lukaku were substituted in the match, it was reported they were unhappy with it. Thomas Tuchel went on to play the duo against Spurs where Ziyech scored one of the best goals of the season and funny enough, the media changed their narrative that Ziyech was now happy at Chelsea. How fickle and how petty could they be to try to force a narrative so bad that they defy common sense. Lets not forget that now they mention Werner, and then Havertz and then Pulisic haha. Well they can keep on throwing in all the names with the hope that one will stick. In the meantime Thomas Tuchel and his team march on to add two silverware in the month of February.
The season still has a long way to go, there will be ups and downs, some teams have improved their squad in the January market while Chelsea have been in the need for a LB/LWB cover for months and we failed to address that. Thomas Tuchel has proven to be “the good wife” who, in spite of all the glaring issues, hardly complains but rather makes lemonades out of lemons. Today, he has managed to make Malang Sarr who was not originally part of the club’s plans to stay at Chelsea, an important part of the team. Even Saul is finding his feet after a difficult start to life. In the wake of Newcastle about to add up to the big money spenders and possibly top 4 challengers in the near future, Chelsea can boast of only one differential, and that is Thomas Tuchel. He must be protected by the fans and the club from the bad media propaganda as we march on to challenge for two trophies in this month of February thanks to the very brilliance of the best coach in the world, Super Tomy Tuchel!
KTBFFH!
Seth Adusei (twitter @sethaadusei)
A masterpiece from Seth, my favorite part “makes lemonades out of lemons” 👏