Most Chelsea fans are delighted by the news that Thomas Tuchel has been named England coach. He was incredibly popular during his all too brief time at the club, and the majority of fans were disappointed when he was sacked.
He’s not coming back here, and for a long time it’s seemed inevitable that he would end up breaking our hearts by ending up at Man U or Tottenham or somewhere else equally painful for us. The fact that he would likely do well with them would make it even worse.
So to have him with the national team is a glorious return for English Blues. There is a downside to the move too, however.
Maresca admits multiple backroom figures could go
While we expect Tuchel to lean heavily on Chelsea players and potentially even academy products down the line, which will be great, he also looks set to poach some of the backroom staff he liked from his time at the club.
He’s already picked up Anthony Barry, whom he met at Chelsea after the expert coach was brought in under Frank Lampard, and Tuchel then took to Bayern Munich with him. But there will be more direct losses, according to Enzo Maresca himself in his press conference today:
“I know that one of [the staff] has been approached; one of the analysts. We are quite open for people to leave and take their chances in case they wanted to take it. The other one, Hilario, I heard something but there has not been any approach yet.
“This is the only thing I know. We are open-minded in terms of allowing people to take chances and also we are happy to keep people who want to stay and if they want to go, they can go.”
As Maresca says, you can’t stand in someone’s way in situations like this, but it’s unfortunate given things are going so well.
