Tactics and Transfers: Transformation under Thomas Tuchel
A couple weeks ago, Chelsea legend Frank Lampard lost his job because Chelsea was too far down the table, Liverpool was a good football side, Alisson Becker was better than Kepa Arrizabalaga and GameStop was an irrelevant fossil of the pre-cloud gaming world. The world and football move quickly though. Thomas Tuchel has quietly gone about moving Chelsea up the table since arriving. Whether Lampard would have done the same is unfortunately no longer relevant and Thomas the Tank has done a magnificent job.
The Blues are now in fifth place and depending on how things go against Newcastle—bogie team though it is—could even end up in fourth, ahead of Liverpool, who has forgotten how to play football. Arrizabalaga also kept a clean sheet and made a pretty class save with his legs, meanwhile Alisson attempted to kill a man. GameStop may still be irrelevant as a video game store, but it sure went to the moon for a minute.
Let’s go.
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Do I think that Lampard would have improved Chelsea and ended up higher than the position it was in when he was sacked? Yes, duh. In other news, water is indeed wet. That said, Tuchel has done a fantastic job since coming in and it should be noted that he came in under pretty much the worst circumstances humanly possible.
The team suddenly feels more cohesive and stable than it did before and though the Blues were never going to end up in eighth, his role in the side being unbeaten since his arrival is inarguable. The German has played the youth players and shown the necessary pragmatism that anyone managing Chelsea has to have at the same time.
Tuchel is an excellent manager, or at least people think he is. I, for one, am relishing seeing him manage in the Premier League against other top tier talent when he doesn’t have the best squad assembled in the history of a nation.
One of the true pleasures of this period has been Mason Mount. The guy can play and he doesn’t play like a kid who’s getting his chance; he plays like a man who deserves to be there. With Lampard gone, so are the rumors of favoritism. Mount has been the best player since Tuchel arrived and he didn’t even start the first match. He has combined his unbelievable work ethic with vision and the sort of genius touches that Chelsea bought Kai Havertz to make—including one first touch that if Mount played for Liverpool, we’d all have heard about ten thousand times and been told how he was the next coming of Steven Gerrard. He has been a class act and has remained completely undroppable.
Timo Werner also deserves some praise. He’s still in a rotten bit of a scoring duct, but he’s a valuable player. He works hard for the team and has won a ridiculous amount of penalties in the past couple of weeks. If he were allowed to take them, he’d have broken the duct and been considered to be in good form, even which is a bit unlucky. But what says the most about him is that, have we heard a thing? Have there been grumblings? Has their been anything other than nose-down, team oriented hustle and hard work? Nope. Werner is a class act and has shown that as well in recent weeks.
Finally, that brings us to Callum Hudson-Odoi, or the CHOsen one, as people like to call him. The young man has been a revelation under Tuchel and is the only player to rival Mount for best player since the arrival of the German coach. Gone are the rumblings of entitlement and selfishness and in is the gifted, joy of a player that Hudson-Odoi can be. Even being played out of position as a wingback, he essentially ran the entire right side of the pitch in several games. Hudson-Odoi is supposed to be the gem of the academy, the sort of player who shows that Chelsea doesn’t just produce talented youngsters, but genuine world class stars. Sooner or later, Chelsea will have to play him on his favored left wing so he can unleash his full attacking capabilities. But until then, the true joy of seeing him play anywhere on a football pitch is something that everyone who supports the Blues will be happy to have.
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That’s about it though for this entry. Chelsea plays Newcastle later on and should make the most of it. Newcastle is in the sort of untidy and conflicted position that has been too regular for the Magpies in recent years. The Blues are in ascension once again and who knows, the league has been very weird so far. Just how high could they end up in the current run of form?