True Blue Bollocks

Jonathon Wilson in The Guardian:

He is one of the world’s brightest coaching prospects, but he is not Lampard. He does not ooze “Chelseaness”. Worse, he arrives as an ascetic vegan intellectual into a world that has had quite enough of experts, as a German when the German authorities have doubted “Britain’s” brave vaccine.

The vast majority of fans will be sad that Lampard didn’t work out. Some will be sad but feel it’s for the best. Some will feel he wasn’t given enough time. I don’t see how that will make Tuchel the villain by default.

Any hostile reception to the new regime at Chelsea will be directed at the board (or possibly players). I think most fans think Thomas Tuchel is probably fine. If he had replaced almost any other manager he would been greeted with the usual mix of trepidation and excitement (believe me we are used to new managers). As long as the football is not boring, the kids get a chance, and the results are reasonable, he’ll be fine. Just like any manager.

I keep hearing similar sentiments regarding either fans won’t like him because they’re xenophobic knuckle dragging idiots. “Will they accept a vegan with a brain?”. I’m also hearing it’ll be like Sarri and he’ll get a massive backlash. Presumably because the hipster football writer thinks that the problem with Sarri was that he had a cultured footballing philosophy and Chelsea fans are philistines, who only like direct, stick-it-up-to-the-big-man football.

Firstly, if any fan base are used to having (and loving) foreign managers and players, it’s Chelsea so I’m not sure where the xenophobic angle comes from (narrator: he was sure it comes from lazy journalism).

Second, Sarri was disliked because the football was turgid, and it did not produce good results. We finished 3rd In a poor season and did everything we could to finish outside the top 4. We were (just about) the least shit of the other 18 teams outside of City and Liverpool.

Yes we won a trophy. In the Europa League campaign, we only played 270 minutes against any kind of genuine opposition (if you are kind enough to include Arsenal in that). Without a generational player bailing us out every other week, his season would have been very different.

The press would love us to implode again, because Chelsea drama fills a lot of word counts. I’m just not sure it’s justified here.