Thomas Tuchel is facing the toughest period of his time as the manager of Chelsea despite being just four months old as the coach of the side. The job he has to do at the club right now is even bigger than the job he had to do when he joined the club in January.
His test as the manager of Chelsea started on Wednesday, May 12, 2021, when he decided to rest most of his top players to face Arsenal in a Premier League game to keep them fresh for the FA Cup final against Leicester City.
Unfortunately for the London club, they lost the final against Leicester City 1-0 just like how they lost the Premier League game against Arsenal 1-0. The two successive defeats made it the 4th time in 25 games that the German tactician lost a match as Chelsea’s coach.
A tough one to take.
— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) May 16, 2021
Now, Tuchel would not only have to help the club to finish in the top four, but he would also have to prove that he is a manager that can win finals of major competitions.
Since the 47-year-old German tactician started coaching in 2007, he has led teams to a couple of finals especially during his time at Paris Saint Germain (between 2018 and 2020).
Altogether, Thomas Tuchel has been to 8 finals in his managerial career. Out of the 8 finals, he won five. In the last two years, he has led teams to 5 finals, in which he won three.
Among the five finals that Thomas Tuchel led teams to, the most prestigious of them were the UEFA Champions League and the English FA Cup. Recall that the German tactician led PSG to the final of the Champions League against Bayern Munich last season, his team was defeated. On Saturday, May 15, he led Chelsea to the final against Leicester City, his team was also defeated.
On Tuesday, May 18, he is going to lead Chelsea to play against Leicester City again but this time around, it is going to be in the Premier League. If he fails to defeat Leicester City again, Chelsea might not finish in the top four at the end of the season.
If things should go this way for Chelsea ahead of their Champions League final against Manchester City on May 29, it might be difficult for the London club to defeat Pep Guardiola’s led Manchester City.
From all indications, Thomas Tuchel who has been praised for turning things around at Chelsea would not want to end the 2020-2021 season in direct opposite of how he started his reign at Chelsea.
“It’s huge, he (Tuchel) has come into this league and taken it by storm. He’s taken it by the scruff of the neck”, former Manchester United defender, Roy Ferdinand told BT Sport after Chelsea’s FA Cup defeat to Leicester City on Saturday.
“The way he’s galvanized this team, Frank brought this team together, recruitment in the summer and now he’s come in, taken over and shape it as a team that is based on him, his personality, and the characteristics he wants in a football team.
“It was going so fabulously well before. He’s had two games now that he’s lost and he can’t afford to lose the third one on the spin. What that will do for the morale, the momentum, completely gone out of his team which he has built up – and it takes time to build that.
“What we had seen that he had built in this team was characters, there was a character about this team and a personality that was starting to show itself.”
