Be careful of what you wish for, Part. 94

Picture: Twitter/@TTuchelofficial

A day and a half has passed since Frank Lampard was fired as Chelsea head coach, providing a brief window of time in which to consider his downfall, and give thought to his successor. Frankly, Lampard’s departure still stings, though I suppose that sensation, as with all managerial firings - at Chelsea or anywhere else - will recede. Reading some of the coverage, including The Athletic’s forensic examination of what was going on behind the scenes at the club, probably means there should be no room for naïveté or sentiment. The bare facts are that Chelsea were in a slump, Lampard’s results weren’t showing any sign of improving, and the club hierarchy either couldn’t see the path out of that, or were prepared to give it time. That’s football, but also, more specifically, Chelsea.

I won’t pretend that the nature of Lampard’s departure has left a bitter taste in the mouth. True, his win average was only 52%, but then Manchester United’s Ole Gunnar Solksjaer currently stands at 47%; true, Chelsea were sitting ninth in the Premier League this morning, whereas at the beginning of December they were first; and, yes, the performances in the last few weeks were, at times, lifeless and prominently lethargic. But then what club doesn’t go through such schisms? More time was needed to get the best out of all the players under Lampard’s charge, even the under-performing Werner and Havertz, though the contentious Kepa (allegedly one of the sources of internal rupture between the manager and de facto club chief executive Marina Granovskaia) is probably beyond redemption.

I’m not going to present myself as Captain Hindsight (© B. Johnson) here, and say “I told you so”, but I can’t be the only Chelsea fan who was nervous when the club’s all-time record goalscorer was appointed in 2019, with only a season of club management under his belt. My nerves, though, weren't so much about Lampard's inexperience, as the surefire prospect that he would, inevitably and eventually, get sacked and how, then, would we deal with that. Experience of the club’s appointments of Ruud Gullit and Gianluca Vialli, promoted from the playing staff under a previous regime, should have taught us that such fan-friendly romantic measures can end in tears. Lampard’s appointment was, I suppose, no different, and would have been much the same if the club had appointed John Terry or, even, former youth coach Brendan Rodgers. 

The media narrative was always that Frank’s personal connection to the club bought him more time than most under Roman Abramovich, but the bottom line is that no one gets time under the oligarch, “favourite son” or not. Personally, I’m of the slightly cynical belief that Lampard was a PR appointment at the time: with the club dealing with the loss of Eden Hazard and facing a UEFA transfer ban, replacing Maurizio Sarri with another continental technocrat of any standing was going to be unlikely to pull off. Installing Lampard to put a smile back on fans’ faces after the moribund Sarri tenure, connecting with the terraces, so to speak, at a time when there was no other option but to play Chelsea’s much-vaunted youth product, made a lot of sense. This quickly became a “project”, a neat way of positioning an experiment, but it served all purposes. But, as Pep Guardiola pointed out yesterday in his press conference: “People talk about projects and ideas. They don't exist. You have to win or you will be replaced.” And as two-times Chelsea manager José Mourinho added, with only tacit sympathy for his former protégé: “It is the brutality of football, especially modern football. When you become a manager you know that sooner or later it is going to happen to you.”

I don't think Lampard was ever going to get a long run at the job, regardless of his personal history with Chelsea. The club has made clear, with the lengthening roll-call of managers, that it is not interested in legacies, and if it has any interest in heritage, it is only fleeting. The managerial turnover is not a reflection of an impatient proprietor as much as one who just wants relentless success. If anything, it’s extreme fan behaviour. More reasonable fans, however, and especially those who’ve supported the club through good times and bad, and could therefore claim a more emotional bond, will disagree. Chelsea is not some faceless corporation whose financial results are a functional measure of success. Football is more than that, which means that attachments to managers and players go deep. We can be indifferent to some personnel comings and goings, especially with the commoditisation of journeymen figures. But some, who wear the badge with pride, and who have a genuine connection with the fanbase, mean something. They’re also becoming few and far between.

The argument, here, is that we have to move on, just simply because the club has. The manner with which Lampard was fired yesterday - called back into West London while he was driving out into Surrey and the club’s training base in Cobham - says it all. We don’t know the precise detail of the conversation he would have had with chairman Bruce Buck and Granovskaia (whose relationship with the manager had deteriorated in recent months, even before the slump in form), but reports say it was brief and terse. Lampard was even denied the opportunity to say goodbye to the players, who’d ominously been told to report to Cobham later than planned. Having experienced being both firee and firer, I can attest that these meetings are always - always - cold and businesslike. I can’t imagine it would have been any different for Lampard. As it will be, inevitably, for his successor. And his successor’s successor. And the one after that.

So what, then, of the next one? Thomas Tuchel arrives at Stamford Bridge with a reputation for technical excellence and the in-vogue managerial nationality of being German. Having been through their fair share of Italians, a couple of Portuguese, a Spaniard, a Brazilian, a Dutchman and an Israeli, plus that rare Englishman, Tuchel brings the Teutonic approach to Chelsea, an apparently admired football culture that has been led by Jürgen Klopp along with Leipzig’s Julian Nagelsmann and his assistant Ralf Rangnick, both of whom were in Chelsea’s sights but didn’t want to move mid-season. Tuchel is thought of as being an intellectual manager (predictably nicknamed 'The Professor'), someone whose early retirement through injury as a player, at just 25, led him to sink into deep philosophical study about football. He replaced Klopp at the bizarrely-named 1. FSV Mainz 05, where he lasted five years and was considered to be an out-of-the-box thinker, continuously tinkering with formations. 

It clearly impressed Borussia Dortmund, who brought him in, once again as a replacement for Klopp. However, things there eventually became strained, with chief executive Hans-Joachim Watzke saying the club had become “worn out" dealing with Tuchel’s reported control freakery. When he went to Paris Saint-Germain in the spring of 2018, Tuchel issued explicit instructions to the team’s chefs on menus and diet plans for his players, and even monitored their sleep patterns. His departure from PSG, last month, came after further ructions with the club’s hierarchy - notably sporting director Leonardo - over transfer policy and his use of star players, Kylian Mbappé and Neymar. PSG, arguably the only superstar team in France’s Ligue 1, were left in third place at Tuchel’s departure, a position that has caused much head scratching over his appeal to Chelsea. If you can’t be the league leader in, effectively, a one-team league, what chances does he have of meeting Roman Abramovich’s exacting expectations, expectations that couldn’t even retain someone of Frank Lampard’s club history?

Time will tell. The suspicion, however, is that Tuchel - like Lampard - will only be a short-term solution. Given his reputation for trouble, no one sees him as going the distance on a three-year contract (he has signed an 18-month deal with the option of an extension). That may just be Chelsea’s way. The combined £116 million spent on Timo Werner and Kai Havertz will make getting them playing to standards Tuchel’s immediate objective. Getting Chelsea back up the Premier League table will be the other one. There is some hope, however, of what Tuchel is not going to do, as so many of Chelsea’s shotgun managerial appointments do, and that is immediately start playing out-of-favour members of the squad. What’s not known is his philosophy on youth, for which Lampard was admired for bringing on Tammy Abraham, Mason Mount, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Reece James and Billy Gilmour. Lampard was largely forced into playing this Academy product due to the transfer ban, but Tuchel’s perspective will be framed by the £200 million-plus Chelsea spent in the summer. One spot of interest in the summer signings is Thiago Silva, the 36-year-old centre half that arrived for free from PSG. His role is seen as pivotal to shoring up the defence, so it would be reasonable to expect that a reunion with Tuchel could be of benefit. How the German does it, will be the subject of scrutiny. Whether he clashes heads with a notoriously intolerant leadership at Chelsea will be the constant subject of rumour. It’s hard to get excited about the new man coming in, partly because the pain of Lampard’s departure is still raw. But, also, because you know he won’t be around for long.