Chelsea: Thomas Tuchel turned the team over and fortunes around

Thomas Tuchel assumed Chelsea’s managership in January and proceeded to change the side in several ways, transforming it on the way to Champions League glory. It’s been written in this space previously that managerial changes can completely turn a side upside down and in Tuchel’s case, it did after he replaced the popular Frank Lampard as Chelsea’s manager. Let’s take a look at the changes that made Chelsea the Champion of Europe as they took home the biggest club trophy of all.

Tuchel entered the side after Lampard’s sacking and then almost instantaneously changed it dramatically. The changes were in two major areas: formation and personnel. Let’s take a look at each to see what the changes were and how they impacted the club’s success five months later.

After a blistering start by the Blues under Lampard, including a massive seventeen-game unbeaten streak, things went downhill as the club could not beat the top teams in the Premier League. An inability to finish proved crucial and continued all season long even through the team’s brilliant win against Manchester City in Porto.

Tuchel immediately, upon taking command of the Blues, encountered his first game in two or three days against Wolves on January 27th. The result was a tie and the implementation of a new formation. Tuchel shifted from Lampard’s favored 4-3-3 to his own favored 3-4-2-1. The defensive results were instantaneous and would become part of a trend for Chelsea as they notched a clean sheet against a game Wolves sided. The clean sheet would become the hallmark of Tuchel’s defense-first approach by adding two wing-backs to the back three central defenders, adding an additional defender to the side.

Now, for a side that had had trouble finishing with a number of new players trying to fit into their new country, league, etc., and all other issues related to Covid-19, to change to a more defensive strategy may have seemed counter-intuitive. Or was it? Perhaps Tuchel felt that since the team was not finishing, that to tighten up the defense would at least help the side clamp down on opponents until (hopefully) the players broke out of their finishing slump. Whatever his rationale, it worked brilliantly. The formational change to a more defensive approach led Chelsea to not only a top-four finish (thank you, Spurs) but ultimately to the top prize of all, the Champions League title.

Accompanying Tuchel’s formation change, was the insertion of players whom he felt could/would implement it best. From exile under Lampard, Tuchel recalled several players who were key to the five months’ success and to the success in the Champions League final, as well. Tuchel inserted bench players Antonio Rudiger, Cesar Azpilicueta, and Andreas Christensen from almost total exile on the bench under Lampard to playing major, significant roles in Chelsea’s defense. A defense, which as previously noted, was the cornerstone of his overall strategy. How Tuchel, who had been unceremoniously sacked by Paris Saint-Germain just a few months after losing the Champions League title last season, was able to so forcefully and demonstrably apply the necessary changes so quickly to propel Chelsea forward are unknown in this space and will be wonderful to learn in the future.

In addition, he also reinstated Jorginho to a major role in the midfield. His defensive proclivity fit perfectly with Tuchel’s overall objective to build and sustain a smothering, suffocating defense that just didn’t concede goals with its super new goalkeeper Edouard Mendy on the goal line.  Concomitantly, Tuchel had exiled players of his own for whatever reasons. The most prominent were the team’s leading scorer both last season and this, Tammy Abraham, and Kurt Zouma, perhaps the best central defender in the air in the world.

What prompted the assignation of Abraham (and also his striking colleague the underrated Olivier Giroud) to minor roles will be stories to hopefully learn as time goes by. Giroud had helped rescue the club last season to gain a Champions League berth. Abraham had simply been the best scorer on a team that couldn’t finish for two years, and yet, he was sent into exile, as well. Abraham will likely depart (that will be a questionable sale, indeed) in the summer. Such a benching only makes sense in the context of a center forward being willing to play a major role in the new defensive-centric strategy, and perhaps that didn’t happen. Otherwise, it was/is still most puzzling.

That’s it. There was a major change in focus in altering the Blues’ formation from a more attacking to a more defensive one. There were also major personnel changes, especially in the defense, that were result-altering, including in the biggest game of all, when the backline came up huge in the win blocking shots and stifling the previously acknowledged best club in Europe. What a turnaround. Chelsea is now the best club in Europe because they beat the best, Manchester City (in three out of the last four games!).

It was a great finish to an up-and-down season, and far better than expected earlier. Tuchel is already planning ahead. He will have his pre-season, hopefully, his preferred transfers, and do we dare hope for even better results in 2021/22 than this season (if that is even possible)? We’ll see. But we’re on to 2021/22. Let the games begin!