Thomas Tuchel's style of play: What Chelsea fans can expect from their new manager

Thomas Tuchel's appointment as Chelsea manager brings another of the most highly-rated coaches in world football to the Premier League. The German is renowned for his highly-tactical approach to the game, playing entertaining football and having a tendency to fall out with those in positions above his own.

Everyone will be happy if improvements are made on the pitch though, so what can Chelsea fans expect to see?

Style of play

Tuchel's teams attack and entertain, they are versatile and adapt to tactical problems during matches, and adhere to simple principles of play: possession is king, they win the ball high up the pitch, and they are aggressive with and without the ball. It's somewhere between what we see from Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp. 

Although renowned for his tactical nous, Tuchel encourages freedom of thought from his players. There are no rigid instructions that wingers and strikers must adhere to in the final third, for example, and Tuchel's training sessions are designed to encourage players to react on the fly to a variety of situations rather than repeatedly drill information into them. 

Adaptive tactics

Tuchel doesn't have a set way of playing, preferring his players and teams to be adaptable and to switch between multiple tactical systems, sometimes during the same game. His Mainz team pressed and counter-pressed relentlessly, chasing longer passes sent forward in a high-intensity 4-1-3-2 setup, while his Borussia Dortmund side played with a more measured tempo, utilising the greater technical ability of the individuals in the squad to move the ball around and dominate the game in possession in a 4-2-3-1. 

Like at Mainz, Tuchel's Dortmund side also pressed high up the pitch (when the opposition team has control of the ball) and counter-pressed (immediately trying to win the ball back after losing it). It looks a little like this in practice:

Tuchels' most commonly used tactic at PSG was a positionally fluid 4-1-4-1, with the central defensive midfielder sometimes dropping to form a back three, the full-backs attacking both wide and central areas depending on the game, and with a busy midfield of defensive-minded players designed to protect a highly-creative forward three.

Issues to address in the short term

Something that will almost certainly be worked on immediately is Chelsea's weakness in defensive transition, with Lampard's teams too easily caught out of position and outnumbered, unable to counter-press adequately after turning over possession. The diagram below is from a 2-1 defeat to Wolves, and shows an example of something that shouldn't happen in a Tuchel side but did often under Lampard:

It's not that Tuchel will make Chelsea more defensive but that he will, or should be able to, make them better at defending higher up the pitch. Several players in the Chelsea squad are said to have complained about a lack of tactical instructions from Lampard, something which shows in cases like the one above.

The players Tuchel is likely to turn to

Tuchel has worked with Thiago Silva at PSG, Christian Pulisic at Dortmund, and has tried to sign Jorginho and Anthony Rudiger in the past, suggesting he has a strong idea of how to get the most out of these individuals.

A focus on keeping possession requires highly technical midfielders like Mateo Kovacic and Jorginho, and based on Tuchel usually fielding a deep-lying playmaker, with Marco Verratti at PSG and Julian Weigl at Dortmund key to those teams.

That player will be required to operate in a similar manner to that of Verratti in this example below, showing for the ball in build-up despite being surrounded by Bordeaux players and confident enough in his touch that he frees up the two possible next passing options (the arrows pointing out), or controlling on the half-turn and running towards goal (yellow line path).

This role requires a player able to receive and turn in tight spaces, who can pick a long pass, bridge the defence with midfield, and work in rotation with the other midfielders. Jorginho might find himself back in the starting XI because of his suitability to the position, despite his tendency to slow things down.

On that note, the manager has regularly turned to youngsters in the past for this deep-lying playmaker position and Billy Gilmour's performances as a six under Lampard suggest he might be perfect for it. At such a young age and with sky-high potential, he should absorb new information from a forensic tactical coach like a sponge and could be moulded into this role. His spacial awareness and ability to slow and speed the tempo is a great starting point.

One player who may suffer due to Tuchels' appointment is Mason Mount, who has made the fourth-most key passes per 90 of any player in the league and has been the heartbeat of Lampard's Chelsea over the last season and a half, but has low numbers of goals and assists. Mount might be an important player for the team and dressing room, but will he provide the killer cutting edge needed to elevate Chelsea? This conundrum may encourage Tuchel to focus his attention on squeezing more out of Havertz, which would require a different system like a 4-4-2 - something Tuchel often used at PSG - and potentially leave Mount on the bench for the sake of defensive balance.

What to expect in the short-term

As with any manager it will take time for Tuchel's ideas to become visible on the pitch, especially with so few days between matches to work on things in training.

In the short-term we should see a more balanced team less vulnerable to counter-attacks from their opponents and in a few months we'll know whether Chelsea's plan is working, or is likely to, but one guarantee is there will be bumps along the road. Tuchel is a fantastic manager but that alone has never been enough at Stamford Bridge.