Too early to judge Tuchel’s Chelsea

Thomas Tuchel has took over at Chelsea after the sacking of Frank Lampard and things have been mostly positive so far, but there are already a lot of voices from both the fans and the media that the former Paris Saint Germain coach has revitalized the club and he is doing a great job. And I think it is time to sit back and look at the forest instead of the tree.

The hype around Thomas Tuchel taking over at Chelsea is somewhat understandable. We are talking about a highly-regarded manager that has enjoyed success in too important European clubs such as Paris Saint Germain and Borussia Dortmund, plus he is known for playing attacking-minded football and has a decent tactical nous for different types of circumstances, as the last UEFA Champions League proved.

And while we are still in the early stages of his tenure, there are positive signs. The Blues drew 0-0 against Wolverhampton when Tuchel only had one training session and beat Burnley 2-0 and a solid victory over Jose Mourinho’s Tottenham 1-0 this recent week. All in all, it has been quite a solid start to life at Stamford Bridge for the German.

But there is already talk about him having revolutionized Chelsea and him doing a phenomenal job, which is both too soon to tell and also putting a lot of unnecessary pressure on Tuchel when he is still working with Frank Lampard’s squad, not his. This is something that the press and fans in social media tend to do quite often: judge too soon instead of seeing the actual events unfolding and developing.

It is also worth pointing out that while the three clean sheets in a row have been quite good, especially after the struggles that their defense had during Lampard’s tenure, the reality is that Wolves, Burnley and Tottenham have struggled to score in recent weeks, so putting a solid defensive block against those teams was always going to be effective. Again, it is a positive sign, but too soon to talk about Chelsea being a defensive juggernaut.

A new manager arriving at a club dealing with a difficult spell of form is always very likely to have a positive influence: the players feel a lot more relief, they feel happier and they are usually given a lot more freedom to perform. That is why new managers always have an initial vein of positive results that is quite important and that might be what is happening at Chelsea–the key is to see if they are going to perform once that spell ends.

Thomas Tuchel has a good squad and the knowledge to be a success at Chelsea. But we have to wait and see if he can manage to pull it off instead of drawing quick conclusions.