Having drawn a blank against the Portuguese Burnley, if we may so describe the clean-sheet-loving Wolves, Thomas Tuchel gets to go against the real thing on Sunday.
The inclination towards experience over youth, gutting the framework of Frank Lampard’s side, struck a discordant note with the celebratory profiling that accompanied Tuchel’s appointment at Chelsea.
The dynamic hustle in the final third promised by his CV did not survive the conservative impulse to protect against disaster first up.
So back came Cesar Azpilicueta, Jorginho and Olivier Giroud to meet Wolves’ fabled aversion to risk with a familiar lack of thrust.
Perhaps Mason Mount, who sped the play when he did appear, Reece James and Christian Pulisic might be seen more favourably after a few sessions at Cobham. One thing is certain, the bulwark that is Burnley is harder to shift with older, slower feet.
Sean Dyche must be licking his lips at the prospect of taking down the latest pin-up through the door at Stamford Bridge. Clearly there was not enough football exotica in the Dyche hinterland to tempt the great Roman to give him a go.
Maybe Kettering, Chesterfield and Northampton and other co-ordinates along the route that led to Burnley have more appeal to the German ear. If only the Bundesliga was where the coaching action was at.
If considered far too mundane for the urbane hierarchy in west London Dyche will just have to settle for crashing the party, as he did at Aston Villa on Wednesday and at the mighty Liverpool before that.
You do wonder what the likes of Dyche must do to change the dynamic in the upper echelons of English football, a land of opportunity for foreign progressives but a foreign idea in the boardrooms of the rich and powerful.
Tuchel appears sharp enough. He talks about energy and atmosphere, about working the half spaces and the importance of precision with the final ball.
He wants his teams to be exciting, to show the necessary athleticism and desire, and of course he is up for the challenge of taking on the best coaches in the world in the most competitive league in the world. His assessment, not mine.
The man he replaced was considered cooked after failing to return results commensurate with the expectations of a ruthless owner who invested heavily on new players. Tuchel understands the demand. You will not here an echo of the Lampard refrain that young players need patience. There is only the present in Roman’s game. The future is pre-bought.
The Wolves game was a free pass. Tuchel might even be allowed a draw against Burnley, at a pinch. But by the time Jose Mourinho rolls around next Thursday there will be no appetite for folky anecdotes about his liking for Tottenham Hotspur as a kid on the grounds that a funky team from das England played well with his mates in the playground in Krumbach. Roman will want to see Kai Havertz morph into Gunther Netzer and Timo Werner into Gerd Muller.
Because this is what great coaches do, right? Or maybe it was never anything to do with Lampard’s coaching ability, about petty divisions in the dressing room, about wanting to buy Declan Rice, about the treatment of Kepa Arrizabalaga or relations with matriarch Marina.
Perhaps results broadly reflected the talent and maturity of the squad. Lampard, who wished his successor good luck, escaped with enough of his nascent reputation in tact to come again. Tuchel arrives fully formed. Even if he is as good as his reputation suggests, it might not be enough to prosper in this house.
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