Tactics and transfers: The Chelsea way

All that said though, Chelsea owes Tuchel a debt of gratitude. Much less for the Champions League he won that now puts us two above any of the other London sides who for many years felt they were better, more important, and statelier than us. For someone who went to school in North London during the prime years of Arsene Wenger, Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira, and Sol Campbell – that 2-0 debt will always be of value.

The german is truly owed a guard of honor for is his behaviour during the chaos of the sanction period. In football it would be hard to argue has there ever been a time when more was asked of a manager that had less to do with football than ever before. Questions about player conduct, finance and the odd marital issue are sadly run of the mill. Human rights violations and the validity of civilian sanctions for war crimes? Not so much.

Whether or not you agree with the politics around a lot of what happened that’s not what I’m here to write about and with respect to the vast majority, I’m actually not even interested in the discussion. But Tuchel’s stately, elegant, poised and admirable stature during that period are the things that few people have the character for these days. I live today with both admiration and gratitude for the man that equally echoes the relief I felt every time he spoke then.

In a time when emotional outbursts and selfishness are often acts of conceit, camouflaged as acts of self-preservation, Tuchel would have been within his rights to wash his hands of the issue and resign. He certainly would have been within them to simply refuse questions and interviews. But the fans, the club and the community deserved more than that. He spoke to and for us during that period and demonstrated the sort of spine that many in this vertebrae challenged time aren’t even aware of enough to dream for.

So for that he deserves our gratitude. Thank you Mr. Tuchel and good luck to you in all your future endeavors. That though does not mean if the new owners felt that he wasn’t the man to lead their vision going forward that he should keep the job.

For a long time, I have said that a more business-minded owner might be the best possible thing for the Blues. The desire to turn a profit or to simply fail to turn a loss could instill the sort of discipline that Roman Abramovich never needed. CFC was a luxurious and fun hobby for the Russian billionaire. If Roman simply collected the interest on his rumored £12b fortune at a standard rate, excluding the necessary genius level, if perhaps morally questionable, business acumen to go from Siberian orphan to tire and rubber duck followed by a jean salesman to oil and steel magnate then he would have been compounding over £240,000,000 in wealth per year in simple interest. Who cares if you don’t keep a youth player then? Who cares if you don’t sign the right striker? If you need to fire a manager? Not someone whose money makes almost a quarter billion dollars a year for itself simply by existing.