Tuchel sticks and City cash in

THE life of a maestro is a torturous existence. Pep Guardiola and Thomas Tuchel may well be two of the finest minds in football, bouncing ideas off each other at their summit meetings in Germany back in the day. Yet they also appear among the most troubled at times.

Tuchel rarely appears happy at the best of times, spending much of a game throwing hands in the air, spinning round to his bench and venting a volley of frustrations.

Here, though, he reached peak exasperation, a gurning, frowning ball of vexation. Tuchel came into the game in the ascendancy. His personal head-to-head with Guardiola since arriving in England was 3-0 in his favour, the last win being the Champions League final. As such, you might expect his team to muster a shot on goal.

Instead, he approached the game like a man who had enjoyed a run of wins at Monte Carlo and was now content to stick with his winnings rather than twist and go for broke. ‘We played a bit like we had something to lose,’ said Tuchel.

‘There was nothing to lose. After the goal there was a bit more energy, a good reaction and a lot of risk. But you had the feeling that this is the type of mentality that you need from the very start — that you take risk, you accept risk. And that was not the case today. They made us underperform.’ Hard to argue with that. Except that much of the responsibility lay at the door of the coach which, in fairness, he accepted.

But Chelsea never really looked like Tuchel’s Chelsea. Romelu Lukaku (right) was impotent alone up front, limited to a handful of touches in the first half. Timo Werner did run with the ball at times, but in a hurried, slightly manic, m a n n e r. A n d h i s selection these days is a sure-fire indicator that Chelsea want to use his pace on the break. You sense that when they feel they can carve a side open, he is on the bench.

‘I don’t think it’s a matter of structure,’ said Tuchel. ‘It’s a matter of positions and intelligence in the opponents’ spaces. We win together and lose together and I’ll ask the question also to myself — was it the right shape?’ In fairness, Tuchel’s spasms of energy on the bench were chiefly directed to urging his side higher up the pitch. But the message he sent with his selection had been caution first. Had he set up in a 3-4-3, this might have been more of a contest.

Still, it is hard to berate the Champions League-winning coach. When these two last met, it was Guardiola we berated for lacking defensive sensibilities. But unlike in that final they had Rodri patrolling the midfield, Bernardo Silva back to his best and Gabriel Jesus assiduous in pressing.

‘Nobody can deny they were excellent,’ said Tuchel. ‘Part of performance is to make the opponent underperform. This is what City did today. They were stronger, sharper. We lacked belief and confidence.

‘They made us defend deep. They are the most intensive team in the league in the opponents’ half but still they are only 10 players and there are ways to escape the pressure. But not for us today.’