The Blues boss has explained what he expects from his team ahead of a London derby on Thursday night
Thomas Tuchel has responded to Jose Mourinho’s comments that the PSG job “cannot compare” with one in the Premier League ahead of Chelsea’s trip to Tottenham on Thursday night.
Mourinho appeared to play into the perception that coaching in the Premier League will be more challenging than in France with recent comments directed at the new Chelsea boss.
As he takes charge of his first London derby, Tuchel will also face Mourinho for the first time as a manager and he responded to the remarks made by his opposite number.
“You cannot compare. I absolutely agree. It is totally different. It’s a totally different culture. It’s a different attitude. It’s a different way to play,” Tuchel told reporters. “I want to point this out very clearly: for me there is no better and no worse – it’s [just] very, very different.
“Jose’s right, it is a big difference. It’s not a matter of what is better or what is worse it’s just if it fits and right now this fits perfectly for me. I feel absolutely comfortable.”
Tuchel’s match at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium will be his third in charge of the club after Frank Lampard was sacked last week.
It will be against the only man to be sacked twice by Roman Abramovich, Chelsea’s billionaire owner, who is famous for being ruthless with his managers. Still, Mourinho is widely regarded as a success at Chelsea, having won three Premier League titles over two spells.
Tuchel was asked how he will handle the desire to get quick results with long-term performances in his approach in west London.“I think for that we need a good relationship between the players and me so we can always talk about the performance,” he said. “The results will hopefully follow. They don’t follow all the time in football.
“It is the hardest thing to control for a manager who wants to control everything and for a coach who wants to plan everything but in football, you have to accept that you can’t control the result. In the Premier League, you cannot control the result. It is impossible.
“What is performance? It’s: ‘what does the manager expect of me, why does he expect it of me and what does the team expect from me as a player when I play, and how should we play together as a group’. It’s like an orchestra; we have to follow a certain rhythm, discipline and style.
“If you ask me if I prefer to win lucky, or lose undeserved, I go for a lucky win of course because it is easier to improve on that. But, we are here to perform on a level that allows us to increase the possibility to win because in football there’s not more that we can do.”
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