The shortest long season ever, said Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Or maybe he meant the longest short season. Or perhaps he was just trying to make conclusions about Manchester United’s visit to Chelsea impossible to draw. After all, why add voltage to the hyperbole that routinely surrounds a United trip to Stamford Bridge?
Solskjaer knows perfectly well that defeat would invite Chelsea to pour all over them in the race for Champions League qualification, especially with a trip to the Etihad on the horizon for United a week hence. Who gets a crumb of comfort against Manchester City these days?
Chelsea have every reason to pile in with fixtures against Liverpool and Everton to follow on the heels of United. Since City have made the title race an abstraction for their rivals, the top four is once again the focus of attention and where jeopardy attaches.
Chelsea trail United by six points. Thomas Tuchel, sitting on an unbeaten run of eight matches since taking over from Frank Lampard, has no interest in allowing that to become nine.
Tuchel is able to dust off his old notes on United having played them twice in the Champions League group stage this season. Victory at Old Trafford after losing the opening fixture in Paris all but guaranteed PSG’s progression to the knockout stages, for all the good it did him.
“They like to have space and play on the counter,” he said, giving the impression he was bringing forth a straight translation of his French team-talks. “They like to use their speed and absorb yours. It helps to have played them in the Champions League.
“We will use that knowledge to prepare our team. But we won’t show pictures from those games. We will focus on us and what we want to do. It’s a big challenge to be the first to beat them and end their run of (unbeaten) away games.”
The control is all Tuchel’s at this point. He charms with the breezy openness of a university lecturer and treats questions with a warm embrace. It was the same with Solskjaer, who won his opening eight games and ten of the first 11 as caretaker manager after stepping into the breach left by Jose Mourinho in December 2018. It has taken until now, after an unconvincing middle sector, for Solskjaer to wrestle back a semblance of authority in the role.
Tuchel is still dabbling with selections. However, the victory over Atletico Madrid in the first leg of the Champions League last 16 added a layer of weight to the proposition, identifying his Chelsea as a well-organised unit difficult to beat. He has yet to identify his Eden Hazard, an accelerator capable of destroying teams on his own. Perhaps he is just a Christian Pulisic selection from finding his man.
Tuchel admits that keeping those not selected is a key part of forging the unity that he is looking for at Chelsea. “It is a challenge as a coach to not lose the connection to the guys who do not play so much,” he said.
“I follow my intuition. I don’t follow a leadership book. It is important to keep the connection as a coach to the group, to keep a trust that keeps us going. This is the challenge. A little luck with decisions and results also helps.”
While touchy-feely Tuchel is a welcome upgrade on some former incumbents, a sympathetic ear is only a temporary solution and will not appease for ever those yet to break into the inner circle.
You feel the match against United represents a step up in difficulty as well as focus and as such might be seen as the end of the beginning. It feels like Tuchel senses this too.
“The big games are always the next game. There are special fixtures, a London derby, Champions League against (Atletico) Madrid,” he said.
“Now it is Man United, Liverpool and Everton in the league, a series of big fixtures and big teams. This is why we are here. (So far) it is not a pleasure to play against us but the picture is not finished.”
Spoken like the optimist he is, like Lampard was. The mistake is to believe there is a picture to finish. That’s just the illusion Roman sells.
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- Hall: Martial is running out of chances to prove he is part of the future at Man Utd
- The Czech ‘warriors’ who rose from obscurity to fire West Ham into European contention
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/2MBaiZW
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