With Erik ten Hag’s future as Manchester United boss up in the air, eyes are naturally diverting to potential replacements.
While the understanding is that no decision has yet been taken by United’s leadership team, who were all in attendance to watch the team’s 0-0 draw at Villa Park on Sunday, on whether to stick or twist with the Dutchman, there is no escaping the fact he is under pressure.
All of which naturally sees roads lead to currently unattached manager Thomas Tuchel, who has been out of work since leaving Bayern Munich at the end of last season.
It was Tuchel who had lunch with Sir Jim Ratcliffe over the summer, only for United to stick with Ten Hag. Ratcliffe is an admirer of the former Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea manager, although it is understood that others in United’s executive team have their reservations.
Mail Sport takes a closer look at whether Tuchel, a naturally combative manager with a track record of leaving jobs under a cloud, would be worth the hassle should United move on from Ten Hag.
Thomas Tuchel is out of work and viewed as potential successor to Erik ten Hag at Man United
Tuchel could take over from Ten Hag who is under pressure after a poor start to the campaign
ON THE PITCH
Tuchel continues to be regarded as one of the elite managers in world football, a top tier coach that has won the biggest honours.
He delivered Borussia Dortmund’s first trophy in five years with the DFB Pokal back in 2017, while he won the Ligue 1 title in his first season at PSG before following that up with a domestic Treble and a Champions League final appearance in his second season.
The German had won the Champions League with Chelsea four months after taking over from Frank Lampard in a sign of his ability to take a dysfunctional set-up and quickly turn it into a winning machine.
Advocates of Tuchel point to the attacking, exciting football he has delivered across multiple clubs, while he made PSG a lot more streetwise in Europe, one of their biggest areas of weakness.
In his first 50 matches in charge at Chelsea, Tuchel oversaw 24 clean sheets and they conceded just 24 goals as they become a model of consistency defensively. No team across Europe’s top five leagues had a better record in that span.
It was Man City boss Pep Guardiola who gushed over Tuchel’s style of play back in 2022, saying: ‘He’s so creative, One of the few managers I learn constantly from to develop as a better manager.’
Tactically Tuchel (middle) is viewed by his peers as one of the smartest minds in the game
But while Tuchel has long been lauded for his tactical brain, he is not perfect.
There is no escaping the fact that the second half of his spell at Chelsea saw his principles collapse and results falter.
After the opening 50 games set the standard, the second 50 games saw Chelsea concede 53 goals, while scoring – a real issue for Manchester United right now – became an issue.
Chelsea saw their goals per game fall from 2.53 to 1.74 and he ultimately paid with his job following a dismal defeat in Europe away to Dinamo Zagreb.
At Bayern Munich, his most recent job, Tuchel wrote himself into the record books as the manager who ended the club’s historic run of 11 straight Bundesliga titles.
Tactically Tuchel was criticised in Bavaria, not least faltering in games against Bayer Leverkusen, who went on to win the title.
A comparison to predecessor Julian Nagelsmann, who lost only 10 of 84 matches in charge, showed Tuchel cough up 11 defeats in 44 games.
Tuchel won the Champions League with Premier League rivals Chelsea back in 2020-21
Now, Manchester United are currently enduring their worst start to a Premier League season through seven matches, with Ten Hag breaking his own record set last season, with just eight points from seven games this time around.
Tuchel would likely bring about a near-immediate uptick in results and performances – a mediocre Chelsea under Lampard soon showed organisation and structure under Tuchel – but longer term issues at United would be unavoidable.
The German is combustible at the best of times and how, it must be wondered, would he react to having a desired style of play dictated to him by leadership?
‘We’ll decide that style — plus the CEO, sporting director, probably the recruitment guys — what the style of football is, and that will be the Manchester United style of football and the coach will have to play that style,’ co-owner Ratcliffe said in February.
Given Tuchel’s abrasiveness with superiors, that sounds a recipe for disaster.
OFF THE PITCH
This is where Tuchel’s baggage begins to pile up.
Tuchel feels much more like the boom-or-bust approach previous regimes at United have leaned on. Think Jose Mourinho; think Louis van Gaal.
Ineos often speak about a long-term project, a process of building from the ground up with a focus on youth development.
Well, history shows us that Tuchel is more of a whirlwind manager, with his resume reading: two years in charge of Dortmund, two-and-a-half years at PSG, 19 months at Chelsea, and 14 months at Bayern Munich. Given Ratcliffe said this new leadership team would not run to find a solution, this would feel a significant shift from their original plan.
He is combustible and clashed publicly with then-PSG sporting director Leonardo (right)
Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe – who is an admirer of Tuchel – has made a number of changes off-the-field at the club, and the manager could potentially be next
Having earned his stripes as an up-and-coming manager at Mainz, he headed for Dortmund but that would eventually sour.
At Dortmund there was a total breakdown in relations, reports at the time stated, to the point where ESPN described it as: ‘A toxic mix of mistrust and communication failure has led to a point of no return. Tuchel has burnt too many bridges at the club, where leadership, players and employees have turned against him.’
Intensity has a shelf life and that has always felt appropriate when it comes to Tuchel.
At PSG he routinely butted heads with sporting director Leonardo, who at one point appeared to publicly go to war against his manager: ‘I didn’t like Tuchel’s statements, neither did the club.’
The two of them clashed over transfer policy, whereas at Chelsea Tuchel was irked by the amount of work he was tasked with when it came to recruitment. At Bayern Munich he was given limited influence on building the squad. That too irked.
Chelsea is perhaps a good comparison for Tuchel and this potentially available Manchester United job.
Todd Boehly, freshly arrived at Chelsea, afforded Tuchel more influence on recruitment than any of his predecessors, who had worked under Roman Abramovich.
Tuchel was made to engage in regular conversation with ownership on players he wanted, attend regular meetings, oversee recruitment and then when it came to other areas of the job be open to altering his ideas.
Tuchel left Chelsea under a cloud with talkSPORT presenter and Mail Sport columnist Simon Jordan claiming that the reasons ‘would make people’s eyes water’
At Manchester United the newly-formed leadership team are big on communication and any manager would have to slot in to be part of the structure, something Ten Hag has been heavily involved in.
Daily dialogue with sporting directors and technical directors is the exact type of scenario which has seen Tuchel sour with management in previous jobs.
While many Chelsea fans were dismayed at the decision to get rid of him, talkSPORT voice and Mail Sport columnist Simon Jordan let on that more was to it than met the eye. Cryptic but a word of warning to those doubting the decision.
‘There’s a lot more behind the scenes of Tuchel that would make most people’s eyes water as to the reasons why Todd Boehly made that decision and it wasn’t just a case of losing to Dinamo Zagreb, it was case of a whole raft of other things – that’s Todd Boehly’s gift to tell people what that is,’ Jordan said on talkSPORT at the time.
‘But it opened my eyes and I would’ve done exactly the same thing as Todd Boehly did which is “you can go mate”.’
Tuchel was officially a ‘head coach’ rather than a ‘manager’ at Chelsea and sympathisers of the German will point to the dysfunction at the clubs he has recent worked at.
But with Ineos eager to operate in a very set structure which is development-led and young player-led, history suggests the initial honeymoon with Tuchel would, as it always seems to do, end in a bitter divorce sooner than later.
IN THE DRESSING ROOM
One of the biggest winners were Tuchel to pitch up at Old Trafford would undoubtedly be Mason Mount, who thrived under him with Chelsea.
‘For me personally he’s helped me on and off the ball, he’s helped me with confidence,’ Mount is on the record as saying.
Tuchel is not the warmest of managers and sources in German described him as ‘surly’ with players in his most recent job at Bayern Munich.
He ran into issues with Joshua Kimmich and Manuel Neuer, two players in Bayern’s leadership group, while he was critical of both Matthjis de Ligt and Noussair Mazraoui, two players now at Manchester United.
Mason Mount (left) would benefit from Tuchel but Matthjis de Ligt (right) previously struggled
‘We don’t need to talk about his technical skills and his understanding of the game. That’s great, but he has to develop some grit and push himself to the physical limit. Nous has to fight, fight, fight,’ Tuchel said of Mazraoui during his time at Bayern.
Those are two players United acquired this summer and that the leadership team have a lot of faith in.
It was understood that there was ‘full alignment’ on signings over the summer and Tuchel would not be allowed, one would hypothesise, to rip the youth building up so soon.
Like any potential replacements there are the pros and the cons, and while Ratcliffe is an admirer, history suggests caution is required when it comes to Tuchel.