Every
manager wants to put a strong marker down at a new club. This was true when,
in Thomas Tuchel's first game in charge at Chelsea at the end of January,
Mason Mount started on the bench. Was this the first sign of Tuchel's
changing of the guard?
In Frank Lampard's two-and-a-half seasons as a coach at both Derby and
Chelsea, Mount had become his ever-present, his protegee, his go-to guy.
Gareth Southgate had followed suit for England too, but Tuchel opted for a
touch more experience across the board for his maiden outing, although it
was Mount who grabbed the headlines.
The result was a defensively astute 0-0 draw against Wolves, but with
creativity lacking and more time to work with Mount on the training field,
Tuchel soon began to tread the well-worn path as the 22-year-old slotted
seamlessly into the head coach's regular starting XI. Mount was again the
main man.
Four months on, the midfielder continues to shine under Tuchel. Mount has
scored the most Premier League goals under the German (4), created the most
chances (30) and is joint-second for assists (2). In the league overall this
season, he is second for chances created (78) and final third passes
completed (602).
You can continue to reel off the stats of just how much of an impact Mount
has had, and Tuchel sees no ceiling on how much his midfielder can achieve
in his career.
"There are no limits. He has the full package," Tuchel exclusively told Sky
Sports ahead of Wednesday's Premier League game with Arsenal.
"He is incredibly talented and even more importantly, he has the personality
at a very young age to keep his feet on the ground, to arrive every day at
Cobham with a smile on his face. Mason is simply happy to be out there on
the pitch and playing football. It doesn't make a difference if he is
playing short-sided games, or four against four or if he plays out there in
boxes.
"It's what he would do if he was not a professional player, he would be in
the park and would do the same stuff and I have a feeling he is very aware
of how he arrived at this point in his career. It makes him very
self-confident, it makes him appear very humble and very hungry to learn and
these are the big circumstances to have a big career.
"He is crucial for our game, he is an absolutely key player and he deserves
all the support that we give him."
But while Mount has impressed in attack, Chelsea have struggled with goal
conversion in recent months. Chance after chance passed them by in their
Champions League semi-final second leg against Real Madrid. Of their 15
shots, only five were on target - two of which were goals - while eight
ended up being off target.
Chelsea boast an impressive attacking roster that includes Timo Werner, Kai
Havertz, Olivier Giroud plus Chelsea academy products Tammy Abraham and
Callum Hudson-Odoi, but Tuchel is adamant his squad are on the right track.
He explained: "We see that we lack the high numbers in goal conversion. - we
lack a bit of composure in front of goal, we lack a bit of precision.
"But we never lack intensity, we never lack chances, we never lack touches
in the box and it might be boring, but we focus on that to increase these
numbers and to create more and more chances, maybe higher quality chances,
higher frequency.
"We have lots of talent, but we are still young, there is still room to
improve and our players arrive rarely in a relaxed way. When they have
chance, most of the time, they put in a huge physical input to defend. They
have their part in defence and we don't point the fingers at them if they
don't score."
Defensive improvement: 'We work on it
maybe five per cent'
While the attack may need some time to click, Tuchel seemed to instantly
revolutionise Chelsea's defence. Clean sheets were kept in his first three
Premier League games, with 19 in 25 games across all competitions since.
Tuchel switched to a back three, with Antonio Rudiger, Andreas Christensen
and Cesar Azpilicueta the most regularly deployed players - a trio who were
not assured of their starting spots under Lampard. Combinations of Reece
James, Marcos Alonso and Ben Chilwell now play as wing-backs.
Edouard Mendy also continues to impress in goal - recently named in Gary
Neville's team of the season on Monday Night Football - and Tuchel gives all
of the credit to his players.
"We work maybe a maximum of 10 per cent on it, maybe only five per cent in
training time. For me, in isolated situations, football is a complex game
and you try to reflect these views on the game in training.
"We train in complex exercises, we try to train everything and we try to let
the players find solutions out there on the pitch, either in training or in
games.
"But of course, we have certain principles in how we want to attack and how
we want to defend, but the praise is all for the players because when we
were doing our defensive work on the pitch, we always have a huge team
effort and everybody was involved.
"We were very courageous from the very first minute of our first match
together and that was a fantastic base to start an incredible record. Now
everybody is very self-confident and we are, in the moment, very happy with
our performances."
'We have wins against City, but final will
start from scratch'
Although there is still a Premier League campaign to finish and an FA Cup
final on Saturday against Leicester, it's hard to ignore the giant on the
horizon - the Champions League final against Manchester City.
Chelsea were 2-1 winners at the Etihad on Saturday, eyes trained on the
match for indications of how the European showpiece could pan out. The
victory was enough for Chelsea to once again deny City, having knocked them
out of the FA Cup a few weeks previously and ending their hopes for an
unprecedented Quadruple.
Guardiola vs Tuchel has become the managerial tussle de jour too. In their
last four meetings in both Germany and England, Tuchel has only lost once on
penalties in the German Cup. With such results, does he have a method to
prepare for Pep?
It says something about the club that they’ve built a huge women’s team,
they’ve built a very competitive squad like what you expect when you see
anybody in a Chelsea shirt doing sports, you expect them to play to win, to
take it seriously, to challenge and to push the boundaries and challenge
every competition possible. This is what everybody expects from every team
and the women’s team have clearly fulfilled that task this season so big
congratulations to them. They are also the [WSL] champions now, which is
also an incredible achievement and hopefully we can win both finals
together.
Thomas Tuchel on Chelsea Women
"We try to analyse his team as we analyse all our opponents," Tuchel
explained. "We watch the last moments but on one hand, you have a clear
picture because he has been there for five seasons now and he has
implemented a style that you instantly recognise when you switch your TV or
laptop on, you can see after two or three minutes when you jump into a
match, what their plan is, how they play and so many principles.
"I think he could wake his team up in the middle of the night and they would
start playing like this.
"But it's one thing to understand the pattern and another to observe the
patterns and identify the patterns, but it is a completely different thing
to play against, you have to find solutions for it. This is what it all is
about. You can present solutions but in the end, the players who do the work
on the pitch and need to try and fulfil them, find the solutions and then
need to be confident.
"To arrive in the final now with the two wins against City in our hands, it
gives us a lot of genuine confidence. This is the most important to play
against Pep's team is to play confident, to have the experience of beating
them but we know very well that it starts from scratch. We have zero
advantage, the Champions League final is a very unique game in very special
surroundings and we have to start from zero. But we will arrive wherever we
will play to win the game.
"There's no better way to finish the season than with two finals. I already
know that I will absolutely enjoy this last week of the season when the
regular season has finished and you are there for one more week to come to
training and you're very well aware that there is only you and one more team
to arrive in this very last match in European competition.
"It is fantastic and it is all you dream for as a player and a coach. But at
the same time, we have not won it. The job is not done and we work for a
club that is about winning and we absolutely do not want to participate in
the final, we want to win the final and at the same time, end up in the top
four. These are the challenges and they are not fulfilled."
Finding the focus for Arsenal
To use the old football cliche, it is one game at a time for Chelsea as they
continue to build on their steady progress. Next up - Arsenal at Stamford
Bridge, live on Sky Sports.
A top-four finish remains firmly in Chelsea's grasp too - another route to
Champions League football next season - and Tuchel says refocusing on each
new challenge is now part of their season.
"It's the challenge now after some big matches," he said. "The Real Madrid
game in the semi-final and a big match at Man City, the challenge afterwards
is to constantly refocus, to constantly be recharged and constantly forget
our good results, just remembering our good performances and the input that
we gave to have a chance for these good results.
"It was even hard for me to be fully focused when we arrived in Manchester
the day before [Saturday's game], because there were only two days in
between, so at some point, I learnt that sometimes you have to accept that
you don't have the same excitement, you're not fully charged yet, even when
you arrive the day before.
"It feels totally different when you have three days in between to recover,
like we have now, but the things we demand are fully separated from the
environment and the competition we play in.
"We cannot care less about the competition we play in, we just care about
what to do in what situation, how to cover each other, how we help each
other, how we want to attack and how we want to defend.
"It's absolutely no concern if we do it in the FA Cup, the Champions League
or the Premier League. This is what you wish for as a coach, that the team
lives up to it in a very incredible way and that's why I'm so happy.
"Tactically, we're not sure what to expect [against Arsenal]. It could be a
back four or a back five, Arsenal have done both so in the moment when
you're not so sure what the opponent is doing, it's the moment to focus on
ourselves again. Talk with fitness coaches, the medical department on whom
we can rely, find a good squad and got out there tomorrow evening and do it
again."
Chelsea will be hoping their determined resilience and winning confidence
will see them through these last two-and-a-half weeks, which will define
their season. Should Tuchel achieve each of the tasks ahead of him, it would
be an incredible achievement and an ominous statement of intent for his
first full Premier League season.
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