Former Borussia Dortmund and Paris Saint-Germain manager Thomas Tuchel is the favourite to take over from Lampard at Stamford Bridge, having lost his job at PSG on Christmas Day following a fall out with his old club’s hierarchy.
Tuchel’s time in Paris was a successful one, as he had the best win percentage of any manager in Ligue 1 history with 75.6%, winning six major honours in the two seasons he completed at the Ligue 1 champions. He is also the only manager in the club’s history to take them to a Champions League final.
Tuchel created a lot of friction with the PSG board after expressing his dismay over the French side’s transfer strategy, after stating that he felt “more like a politician than a coach” as he requested sporting director Leonardo to find him a centre back replacement for Thiago Silva, who ironically left on a free transfer to join Chelsea in the summer. Instead, the club signed FC Porto’s Danilo Pereira, who Tuchel often played at centre-back to prove a point to the PSG board.
However, Tuchel is known for getting the best out of his sides, as he did at the Parc des Princes, just after the German had lead Dortmund to two DFB Pokal finals in his two years, where he brought the club their first trophy in five years. This is something that would be very beneficial, as Chelsea have a lot of potential that is yet to be unlocked in their squad. On the other hand, Andriy Shevchenko has also been linked with a return to Stamford Bridge, having left the Blues permanently in 2009, following three fairly unsuccessful years for the Ukrainian at the club as a player.
Remarkably, the former AC Milan striker’s current role of Ukraine national team manager is the only one he has ever had and is making a good job of it, having managed to guide the national side to UEFA Euro 2021, beating the likes of Serbia and Portugal to top of the group in qualifying, with six wins and two draws from eight games.
A move for Ukraine’s all-time top goalscorer would be very much in the mould of Lampard’s move to Chelsea from Derby, as he only has the experience of being in one job, whereas Tuchel has been coaching in football since the year 2000 at VFB Stuttgart and has plenty of experience managing big clubs as discussed above.
At the Mercedes-Benz Arena, he helped develop youngsters such as Mario Gomez and Holger Badstuber, before moving to FC Augsburg’s reserve sides where he gave current RB Leipzig manager Julian Nagelsmann a role as a scout. Tuchel’s ability to develop players is proven, as shown at Dortmund with the likes of Julien Weigl who he signed from 1860 Munich, and he could get the best out of the likes of Werner and Havertz, whereas with a national side, you meet up infrequently and more or less get what you’re given in terms of player selection from a national pool. Ideally, it would be better for Shevchenko to take a job at a club, prior to taking such a big role.