How Tuchel is coping with new transfer responsibility
Ben Jacobs
- 29 Jul 2022 10:40 BST
- 6 min read
Thomas Tuchel is frustrated by Chelsea's start to both the transfer window and pre-season, and is slightly overwhelmed by the added responsibility he now has at the club, CBS reporter Ben Jacobs writes for FootballTransfers.
I think Thomas Tuchel is frustrated because it hasn't been a strong pre-season and the defensive weaknesses at the football club at the moment are apparent. With Antonio Rudiger and Andreas Christensen leaving, Cesar Azpilicueta wanting a move, and Marcos Alonso also trying to go to Barcelona it’s clearly not ideal and I think part of the frustration is down to those mass outgoings.
Related articles
But, Thomas Tuchel now has more control than he did under Roman Abramovich on day-to-day transfers, so it's partially on him. And if you look at Xavi’s approach when the clubs have gone head-to-head for Jules Kounde and Raphinha, Xavi has been directly on the phone to players that he’s wanted to sign on nearly a day-to-day basis. Tuchel has been a part of transfer negotiations but is he being as personable and as driven as Xavi to get a deal over the line?
That remains to be seen. I have no knowledge as to how often he had been calling Kounde, but we know that Xavi has been intent on trying to get players to buy in.
So, Tuchel has to step up and almost be a quasi sporting director in many senses in the same way that Todd Boehly has had to step up and be an interim sporting director as well as chairman and minority owner.
Tuchel should be relishing this challenge rather than being frustrated because he's actually a part of it. He's got more control than ever, so the solution is obviously finding defenders first and foremost, and then Chelsea will turn their attention to possible attackers that they can bring in.
Pre-season
In fairness, the way Tuchel has approached pre-season is to give minutes to new players like Conor Gallagher, who has impressed and there's some excitement there. He's been unlucky with Armando Broja, who might be a solution, at least in the short term or in a squad depth sense, because he did really well at Southampton.
He scored six Premier League goals and Chelsea don't want to sell him to West Ham; they'd ideally like to loan the player out, Newcastle and Everton are interested, or keep him at the football club. But, Broja was late out to the US and then picked up an injury so Tuchel hasn't been able to use him.
I think that the frustration really is around all of these little things and when Tuchel is having defensive problems at the same time he wants to experiment with a back four, that's difficult because he doesn't have the players in yet that he wants to try out that slight shift in formation.
And then of course with Arsenal scoring so easily against Chelsea that’s only added to Tuchel’s bafflement at where Chelsea are. In the attacking sense they've got to resolve the future of Hakim Ziyech, who would still like to go to AC Milan, and Timo Werner, who has a little bit of a friction-based relationship with Tuchel at the moment too.
Transfer targets
It's very difficult for Tuchel to go out into the market and look for an attacker before he knows what he needs. We’ve seen him try very loosely speaking, because it was always clear he wanted to go to Barcelona, for a Robert Lewandowski style striker, which is more in the mould of a defined focal point to complement Raheem Sterling.
And then at the same time, we saw Chelsea bid for Gabriel Jesus. It was a last minute hijack and they were never going to really get him, but that's another type of player, again a focal point. Then in contrast, they targeted a more creative player like Raphinha. I think Tuchel can't really commit to what he wants at this point until he knows where his outgoings are heading, unless he decides to bring in two attacking players, which is not beyond the realm of possibility.
Chelsea urgently need incomings and they've got the finances in place, but they also don't want to be in Spurs’ position where too many incomings arrive and then they don't know whether they can get the outgoings that they would like off the wage bill and out of the football club. In this sense, particularly Ziyech, possibly Werner.
In the midfield area I think it's a little bit more stable because they're happy enough with Kante, for now, even if they might be open to offers, and Jorginho is really settled at the football club despite interest from Juventus. He is delighted that his good mate Kalidou Koulibaly has joined and I think Jorginho just wants to stay at the football club.
More responsibilities for Tuchel
Tuchel is struggling, I think, with the added responsibility of trying to change a formation too. Not week in, week out, but he wants to explore the possibility of that back four. But, when they changed against Arsenal back to their more traditional back three, they looked a lot more comfortable.
However, that's one area that he's working on, on top of needing defensive reinforcements, missing out on targets, and having the added responsibility of basically day-to-day calls with Boehly around the business side of recruitment and he's not used to all of this.
This is the kind of irony I think that's really intriguing with Tuchel. Managers constantly say they want control over transfers, but now Tuchel is really integral to the process of actually pitching for a player and negotiating for a player.
He's getting far more updates because obviously Marina Granovskaia did everything herself and Abramovich certainly never came down to Tuchel’s level on the day-to-day business and had face to face conversations around various things.
He’s suddenly working under an ownership group that are proactive and ambitious, and he’s a big part of that whilst having to do pre-season, whilst having to bed in a couple of new signings and whilst trying to change the formation.
I actually think that to a certain extent, even though he's rising to the challenge and has the appetite for it, it's overwhelming. I don't think he's overawed by it but it’s overwhelming because at this point a manager wants to be on the football field, focusing on the first game of the season.
That's where the frustration is really coming from, that he's a part of everything and that's both good and bad and it has its pros and cons. I think that Tuchel just needs to almost resign himself to the fact that he has to find a solution for now with what he’s got and trust Boehly to get him one or two more.
But there's definitely that balance that is going to be overwhelming to any manager, understandably, between the football side and the recruitment side, and between the tactical side and the business side of the football club.
Another forward addition?
In terms of other attacking targets, I think Chelsea are keeping their cards close to their chest at the moment because they want to ward off other suitors. One name historically that they've looked at is Rafael Leao. With Milan, the price is the real challenge and there's no real possibility of anybody like Ziyech being involved in a swap deal and Milan don't want to sell either.
So I don't think that one is heading anywhere at this stage. It's a case of seeing what Chelsea can pull out the bag, but their first priority remains defenders.
