Pressure ramps up on Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel after slump in Premier League form
BY PAUL LAGAN
paul@slpmedia.co.uk
Pressure is mounting on Thomas Tuchel to arrest Chelsea’s alarming slump in form and indifferent league results.
It might seem on the surface – to the unobserved eye – that things are going well in SW6.
Chelsea are third in the Premier League, they are in the League Cup final, still in the Champions League, have a FA Cup tie at home to Plymouth to come and jet off to Doha soon to play in the Club World Cup.
But this is Chelsea, and the club’s hierarchy are monitoring the recent league results with forensic intensity. The Blues face Spurs at home on Sunday.
Antonio Conte’s side have not lost a league game since the Italian took charge at the start of November.
While the Blues have dispatched Spurs twice in recent weeks in the League Cup semi-final, it’s three points that Tuchel desperately needs.
Chelsea have not won any of their last four league games and have drifted out of a title challenge, trailing Manchester City by 12 points.
The club’s top brass know that Spurs, Arsenal and West Ham have games in hand and if wins don’t materialise, a top-four finish in the league is a serious doubt.
When that happens, the club tends to look to replace the head coach. It’s his responsibility to get results with the players available.
The handling of Romelu Lukaku, whose recent Italian TV interview revealed a schism between him and the head coach over tactics and the Belgium hitman’s desire to move back to Italy, has left rumblings of discontent within the squad.
If Tuchel cannot turn fortunes around off the pitch – and more importantly on the pitch – it could turn out to be an unhappy one-year anniversary for the German at Stamford Bridge.
No such worries for Emma Hayes, named The Best FIFA’s Women’s Coach for 2021, whose Blues side returned to action after a month’s hiatus due to Covid as they dispatched West Ham on Wednesday night to reach the semi-final of the Conti Cup.
The holders, after a slow start saw off their east London rivals 4-2, with Pernille Harder netting a hat-trick.
Hayes was happy with the result, but equally happy just to be on the pitch.
She said: “Oh my goodness, it was so nice to play a game of football. In the first half we looked like we hadn’t played for a month.
“We were rusty, with not a lot of aggression.
“There wasn’t too much wrong but they adapted to what we asked of them in the second half.”
Of her hat-trick heroine, Hayes said: “Pernille had a fantastic game. She set the tone from the start.
“Her on-field relationship with Fran Kirby improved in the second half. She found the right spaces with or without the ball.”
Danish striker Harder, 29, said: “We showed how to play football in the second half. We were more free in the second half.
“We were all a bit nervous in the first half. But we missed playing it and it was fun.”
Attention turns to the WSL game at Crawley against Brighton on Sunday. A match second-place Chelsea have to win to put pressure on leaders Arsenal.
Hayes said: “It’s always a tough game against Brighton. We need to recover well now and focus on that.
“We have to start and compete strongly in the league again.”