The Tuchel Thread

[Jase 43,479]

4 hours ago, Superblue_1986 said:

That recruitment also extends to managers and the bigger picture or vision the club has. If we're not prepared to back Tuchel properly then where does the next manager lead us to? There has rarely been a long term plan, we just seem to go for either the flavour of the month at that point (AVB, Sarri) or the one with the highest pedigree available on the market. There never seems to be a rhyme or reason behind it.

It does feel like there needs to be a strip back somewhat. The most sustained success the club had was when it let Mourinho have quite a bit of influence in the makeup of the squad the first time he was here. The core of that squad took us on for the next 7 or 8 years.

We actually have a nice core of really talented young players who could form something similar again but that needs building around properly and for every change that gets made, it makes it that much harder to gain any form of consistency and vision with recruiting.

If anything, I'd say the manager and club need to have the same vision, with of course the club providing proper leadership and clear ideas. The idea of fully backing the manager and giving them full control can backfire massively if that manager gets sacked. Matt Law said that we should follow what City and Liverpool are doing with Guardiola and Klopp. He seems to forget that City have a bottomless pit of money. They have spent god knows how much now on defenders and have been able to just go out and spend on a new one again if one of those signings go wrong. Our case? We tend to get stuck with that signing that goes wrong for ages. As for Liverpool, it has not turned out to be anything dramatic but it also seems to fly over Matt Law's head that their sporting director Michael Edwards have some times overruled Klopp on signings. So, they haven't always backed Klopp, even though he has managed to keep things steady. 

[milka 3,308]

 

This circus can't last forever where we just sack every manager every single year .

Tuchel modelled this team but the board are not ready to support him at this stage. Either they are deluded that we can spend a whole season with Alonso and Azpilicueta or they are really deluded that we can do it .

 

 

Edited January 20, 2022 by milka

[Superblue 6,331]

3 hours ago, Jase said:

If anything, I'd say the manager and club need to have the same vision, with of course the club providing proper leadership and clear ideas. The idea of fully backing the manager and giving them full control can backfire massively if that manager gets sacked. Matt Law said that we should follow what City and Liverpool are doing with Guardiola and Klopp. He seems to forget that City have a bottomless pit of money. They have spent god knows how much now on defenders and have been able to just go out and spend on a new one again if one of those signings go wrong. Our case? We tend to get stuck with that signing that goes wrong for ages. As for Liverpool, it has not turned out to be anything dramatic but it also seems to fly over Matt Law's head that their sporting director Michael Edwards have some times overruled Klopp on signings. So, they haven't always backed Klopp, even though he has managed to keep things steady. 

I completely agree there has to be a balance, a manager can't just be blindly backed with any signings they want. 

But it's just as important I think for a manager to be given time. I understand the club in the past have had to pull the plug on people like Conte and Mourinho once things have turned toxic but there certainly doesn't appear to be such an issue with Tuchel. He represents the club well in the media, seems to get on very well with Marina and Cech and this Lukaku debacle aside, seemed to build a very tight knit group of players. With the success he has already achieved here which is wildly beyond anybody expected, I think he has earned at least the time to shape and mould this squad in his image. As Matt Law has mentioned our managers inherit a group of players bought under a number of former managers with different formations and philosophies. That requires more time and patience than we're usually willing to provide, to shape such a mish-mash squad into a coach's vision.

If he can be backed (realistically) with signings then even better, but at present I think a manager at Chelsea needs time just as much as funds to build something more robust and lasting than what we have had for the best part of a decade now. What would be next if Tuchel was given the boot either during this season or in the summer? Do we then look at someone looking to play a different style of football yet again to try and get more out of Lukaku?!

[Clockwork 1,770]

21 hours ago, milka said:

 

This circus can't last forever where we just sack every manager every single year .

Tuchel modelled this team but the board are not ready to support him at this stage. Either they are deluded that we can spend a whole season with Alonso and Azpilicueta or they are really deluded that we can do it .

 

 

Tuchel system has serious issues, with and without Lakuku. He won himself a lot of goodwill with CL final victory, if that game didn’t go our way we would have talked about the FA final loss, how he did everything to squander top 4 finish and that he needed help from Spurs to luck our way to a top 4.

 

[Alabama 1,992]

25 minutes ago, Hermione said:

Needed Spurs to get Top 4? He came in while most of us already gave up on Top 4, he brought us back in it, we had some issues but he showed his absolute class last season. It's pretty obvious the players in his attack are the fault not him, Ziyech, CHO and Pulisic are wildly inconsistent and unreliable while Lukaku is pure shit, no matter which manager comes in it will be the same.

Odoi is shit.. 

[Jase 43,479]

1 hour ago, Clockwork said:

Tuchel system has serious issues, with and without Lakuku. He won himself a lot of goodwill with CL final victory, if that game didn’t go our way we would have talked about the FA final loss, how he did everything to squander top 4 finish and that he needed help from Spurs to luck our way to a top 4.

Minus the finishing issues, I'd say we were onto something last season with the system that we played. But then, we bought Lukaku, of all strikers, and things began to slowly go haywire and whatever good things we did last season went out of the window. 

[Clockwork 1,770]

1 hour ago, Hermione said:

Needed Spurs to get Top 4? He came in while most of us already gave up on Top 4, he brought us back in it, we had some issues but he showed his absolute class last season. It's pretty obvious the players in his attack are the fault not him, Ziyech, CHO and Pulisic are wildly inconsistent and unreliable while Lukaku is pure shit, no matter which manager comes in it will be the same.

Losing to Villa, Arsenal, West Brom(lol), and draw against Brighton toward the end of the season was quite bad. Without that CL victory him staying here longer than six months would have been questioned.

Nah his system is very unfriendly for attacking players. PSG had the same problem, how it was basically give the ball to Neymar and Mbappe let them create. 
 

pep and Klopp consistently squeeze more out of their attackers. On the other hand Tuchel has squeezed a lot more out of his defenders at Chelsea.

[Clockwork 1,770]

38 minutes ago, Jase said:

Minus the finishing issues, I'd say we were onto something last season with the system that we played. But then, we bought Lukaku, of all strikers, and things began to slowly go haywire and whatever good things we did last season went out of the window. 

We don’t create enough big chances compared to other top teams. Adding Lukaku has expedited the system weakness.

[Jase 43,479]

2 minutes ago, Clockwork said:

We don’t create enough big chances compared to other top teams. Adding Lukaku has expedited the system weakness.

Our league xG last season was 64. Only City (73.3) and Liverpool (72.6) have higher xG than us. The difference wasn't that huge.

Not gonna pretend we are great at creating chances consistently but there was definitely something exciting to work on from last season. However, we threw all of that out of the window the minute we bought an incompatible player. 

[Jase 43,479]

Tuchel vs Spurs:

W 3-0
W 2-1
W 1-0
W 3-0
W 2-0
W 1-0
W 2-0

[Superblue 6,331]

2 hours ago, Jase said:

Tuchel vs Spurs:

W 3-0
W 2-1
W 1-0
W 3-0
W 2-0
W 1-0
W 2-0

With that record, it's no wonder him and Chelsea seem such a great fit!

[OneMoSalah 8,617]

On 21/01/2022 at 18:50, Clockwork said:

Losing to Villa, Arsenal, West Brom(lol), and draw against Brighton toward the end of the season was quite bad. Without that CL victory him staying here longer than six months would have been questioned.

Nah his system is very unfriendly for attacking players. PSG had the same problem, how it was basically give the ball to Neymar and Mbappe let them create. 
 

pep and Klopp consistently squeeze more out of their attackers. On the other hand Tuchel has squeezed a lot more out of his defenders at Chelsea.

Disagree on the PSG point. In fact not just disagree, would say its completely inaccurate to say such a thing. Severely inaccurate if you look at the stats for goals scored. 

TT also had to come out whilst he was PSG manager and slam French journalists after only winning 1-0 v St Etienne and scoring 1 goal in 210 minutes. Then said about naming a team that scored 4 or 5 goals every game, which we know doesn’t happen unless your Man City or Liverpool sometimes. This was after PSG had scored 75 league goals in like 27 games that season….

(https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-8583213/amp/PSG-manager-Thomas-Tuchel-left-furious-asked-sides-lack-goals.html)

I mean how did PSG score 337 goals in 127 games under him if his system was unfriendly for attacking players? Thats nearly on average 3 goals a game (2.65 p/game) which triumphs his 251 goals in 107 games (2.35 goals p/game) at Dortmund, who apparently were the team he coached who played the ‘most offensive’ football of his managerial career in a similar amount of games. Can’t just say it was purely down to Neymar & Mbappe running around doing what they want.

And look at how tough Pochettino is finding it also to integrate Messi, Neymar and Mbappe into a functional attacking unit whilst also maintaining balance in the team. PSG are no better than they were under TT under Pochettino if you look at them, particularly last season they were probably worse meaning Lille won the title. But TT is Chelsea manager so lets make a completely inaccurate statement about his time at PSG to try and give backing to a point about why our own attacking players are underperforming and why we’ve dropped points due to not creating/scoring enough…. Sure.

Also I don’t care what anyone says, I really don’t think Pep and Klopp are squeezing more out of the likes of a lot of our attackers because they aren’t good enough (Pulisic, Werner, Ziyech - today only one game -, Lukaku). Hence why Klopp and Pep have significantly overhauled their whole squads since being at Liverpool and City to get players who suit the style and are good enough.

Edited January 23, 2022 by OneMoSalah

[NikkiCFC 7,607]

4 hours ago, OneMoSalah said:

Disagree on the PSG point. In fact not just disagree, would say its completely inaccurate to say such a thing. Severely inaccurate if you look at the stats for goals scored. 

TT also had to come out whilst he was PSG manager and slam French journalists after only winning 1-0 v St Etienne and scoring 1 goal in 210 minutes. Then said about naming a team that scored 4 or 5 goals every game, which we know doesn’t happen unless your Man City or Liverpool sometimes. This was after PSG had scored 75 league goals in like 27 games that season….

(https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-8583213/amp/PSG-manager-Thomas-Tuchel-left-furious-asked-sides-lack-goals.html)

I mean how did PSG score 337 goals in 127 games under him if his system was unfriendly for attacking players? Thats nearly on average 3 goals a game (2.65 p/game) which triumphs his 251 goals in 107 games (2.35 goals p/game) at Dortmund, who apparently were the team he coached who played the ‘most offensive’ football of his managerial career in a similar amount of games. Can’t just say it was purely down to Neymar & Mbappe running around doing what they want.

And look at how tough Pochettino is finding it also to integrate Messi, Neymar and Mbappe into a functional attacking unit whilst also maintaining balance in the team. PSG are no better than they were under TT under Pochettino if you look at them, particularly last season they were probably worse meaning Lille won the title. But TT is Chelsea manager so lets make a completely inaccurate statement about his time at PSG to try and give backing to a point about why our own attacking players are underperforming and why we’ve dropped points due to not creating/scoring enough…. Sure.

Also I don’t care what anyone says, I really don’t think Pep and Klopp are squeezing more out of the likes of a lot of our attackers because they aren’t good enough (Pulisic, Werner, Ziyech - today only one game -, Lukaku). Hence why Klopp and Pep have significantly overhauled their whole squads since being at Liverpool and City to get players who suit the style and are good enough.

There is also this interview where he says: I will never say Neymar and Killian what to do, they will find solutions... So from this I take that attackers pretty much have free roles when attacking.

Edited January 24, 2022 by NikkiCFC

[Blue Armour 4,173]

Having spent nearly a year here, has anyone figured out Tuchel's squad rotation strategy?

He obviously has undroppables like Rudiger & Mendy.

And if I have to guess, everyone else gets an extended run of games (if form is decent) for around a month or so, before they make way for someone else., after either being burned out from use or by just injury/poor form.

Case in point: Alonso starting the first month or so of the campaign, before making way for Chillwell. Last month Pulisic. Now Mount & Ziyech.

I'm assuming he's keeping Havertz & Werner fresh and charged up for the coming weeks (Feb and beyond). Would be interesting to see.

[Blue Armour 4,173]

Dp.

Edited January 23, 2022 by Blue Armour

[OneMoSalah 8,617]

3 hours ago, NikkiCFC said:

There is also this interview where he says: I will never say Neymar and Killian what to do, they will find solutions... So from this I take that that attackers pretty much have free roles when attacking.

I wouldnt necessarily say free roles for instance as I don’t think any top team can afford to necessarily give players a ‘free role’ in either offensive or defensive phases of the game now a days because everything is so much more tactical.

There has to be a structure, ideas and pattern of play in place to get the ball from one place to the other. Then when here the attackers can then use their own quality or initiative to do whatever then within the structure/system/framework whatever you want to call it.

Or thats what I took from it when hes alluded to when mentioning being like an orchestra, not suppressing creativity and then Neymar/Mbappe etc making decisions.

[Jase 43,479]

26 minutes ago, OneMoSalah said:

I wouldnt necessarily say free roles for instance as I don’t think any top team can afford to necessarily give players a ‘free role’ in either offensive or defensive phases of the game now a days because everything is so much more tactical.

There has to be a structure, ideas and pattern of play in place to get the ball from one place to the other. Then when here the attackers can then use their own quality or initiative to do whatever then within the structure/system/framework whatever you want to call it.

Or thats what I took from it when hes alluded to when mentioning being like an orchestra, not suppressing creativity and then Neymar/Mbappe etc making decisions.

Would you then say we have a clear idea, pattern of play etc after 1 year into Tuchel's reign? 

As much as our attackers have been shit, inconsistent or whatever else you want to put in here, I don't think Tuchel has helped matters by constantly tweaking the tactical setups, rotating the attacking players. No one is gonna feel comfortable, confident etc if they are constantly rotated and/or being moved around into different positions from game to game. If you look at City and Liverpool, they have a settled system and tactical setups. Guardiola and Klopp might tweak things a little from time to time but they don't do it as much as Tuchel has done. Their players, I think, feel comfortable and confident because they know their position and they are put in position where they can be at their best. I mean, god knows how many times Tuchel has played Player A, B, C in various positions and then turned around to say "to be fair, Player A, B, C is best in this position but that isn't always available" or something along those lines. Their players are also similar while ours are different. They all bring different qualities. Moreover, we also don't seem to have a dominant style of play. When teams play City or Liverpool, they seem to fear them and have to adjust the way they play to cope with them because they have a clear, set style of play (even if everyone knows what they will try to do). City, Liverpool make teams fear them. Don't think we have that same fear factor and Tuchel always seems to be reacting by selecting players based on who the opposition is. 

[OneMoSalah 8,617]

3 hours ago, Jase said:

Would you then say we have a clear idea, pattern of play etc after 1 year into Tuchel's reign? 

As much as our attackers have been shit, inconsistent or whatever else you want to put in here, I don't think Tuchel has helped matters by constantly tweaking the tactical setups, rotating the attacking players. No one is gonna feel comfortable, confident etc if they are constantly rotated and/or being moved around into different positions from game to game. If you look at City and Liverpool, they have a settled system and tactical setups. Guardiola and Klopp might tweak things a little from time to time but they don't do it as much as Tuchel has done. Their players, I think, feel comfortable and confident because they know their position and they are put in position where they can be at their best. I mean, god knows how many times Tuchel has played Player A, B, C in various positions and then turned around to say "to be fair, Player A, B, C is best in this position but that isn't always available" or something along those lines. Their players are also similar while ours are different. They all bring different qualities. Moreover, we also don't seem to have a dominant style of play. When teams play City or Liverpool, they seem to fear them and have to adjust the way they play to cope with them because they have a clear, set style of play (even if everyone knows what they will try to do). City, Liverpool make teams fear them. Don't think we have that same fear factor and Tuchel always seems to be reacting by selecting players based on who the opposition is. 

I would say we do have a style of play but particularly in the final third, we seem to lack ideas or output due to a mix of a lack of quality/chemistry between players/continuity for some players who maybe need regular minutes to get into their groove/whatever else. 

Its fair to say we are a possession based team or at least thats what I would say. And on the shape and patterns, like most 3atb teams (usually what we use although this 4 and 3 hyrbids have come into it recently) we look to utilise overloads we’ve created outwide/centrally (or when we had RJ & BC fit) to stretch teams as well as having shown promising counter pressing and transitional play. Maybe not recently as this last 2 and a half months we’ve had some iffy results and performances but I don’t think its impossible to see an identity when we play. Obviously we aren’t that effective in the final third but this cannot discount all the other work we do in the first and second thirds of the pitch either. Against bigger teams it changes slightly but being a bit more flexible in these games isn’t necessarily a bad thing but again the principles don’t really change either, perhaps we just drop 10 or 15 yards deeper and don’t counter press as high. Undoubtedly now though 6 months in, after myself hoping TT could find some sort of tweak or change to utilise Rom, his integration has severely affected the pressing and the general play negatively. 

On TT & rotation or tweaks, I think this is just the nature of the beast with him especially considering the inconsistency in our front players as its pretty much a settled team elsewhere. From his time at Mainz, he mentioned changes in players and shapes in a presentation/conference/whatever you want to call it. I don’t know if you’ve already watched the video but at 17 minutes in, he goes into detail about preparing a game, making changes for a game v Werder Bremen whilst at Mainz and Sky saying to him about making 6 changes without him actually really realising he’s made 6 changes as before he mentions about him and his staff looking at the opposition and looking for where the advantages were. 

On Pep and Klopp tactics or styles of play in comparison to us under Tuchel, I don’t think its necessarily as straight forward to say that two managers who have had 5+ seasons at each club, signed players for their starting 11s/squads to suit their philosophies which they’ve predominantly signed the bulk of those players for (especially City with Pep) have got a defined style and that after 12 months, with a squad where he has actually only authorised 2 signings (Rom and Saul) that Tuchel should necessarily have this to the same degree that Pep and Klopp have. But what has impressed me is TT has shown over the last 12 months he can best these guys tactically.

I mean I still get the feeling he’s looking at the attacking players and going ‘jesus christ what in the fuck am I going to do to get more out of you’ because 1) hes generally got an improvement in players in every other position over the last 12 months and 2) I really don’t think we can rely on many of them to deliver consistently or to the elite level.