Tuchel assures he is not going to overplay N’Golo Kanté
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It’s a problem with which we’re certainly familiar from the last few seasons, but a quick look at Transfermarkt’s injury history data puts it into stark relief. N’Golo Kanté has not been able to stay consistently healthy for the last two years, since the tail end of the 2018-19 season.
While I cannot vouch for or corroborate the accuracy of their data, it does fit the pattern we’ve seen and certainly stands in stark contrast to Kanté’s Premier League title-winning seasons of 2015-16 and 2016-17, with Leicester City and Chelsea, respectively, when he barely missed a minute, let alone a game.
The Right (and Wrong) Side of Six: Barcelona and Bayern’s sextuplet
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Mortal football teams loftily set their sights on one trophy at the end of a season. The best though set their sights on six. This modern-day feat has been set by two outrageous teams - FC Barcelona in 2009 and FC Bayern Munich securing the sextuple recently in early 2021.
Not all football empires are created equally, nor do they last forever. In fact, the rise of Bayern has come at a time of Barça’s dreadful fall. The climax in this ascending and descending battle arose on 15 August 2020, where Barcelona lost a game of football 8-2 to Bayern which was the team’s biggest defeat in Europe and heaviest loss since 1946.
Chelsea coaching staff rising star Anthony Barry takes on Republic of Ireland role as well
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In the last six months, Anthony Barry has gone from a complete unknown to a well-familiar name in the Chelsea universe. That’s a rather rare feat for a coach, even in today’s information-overload environment.
Then-manager Frank Lampard reportedly “headhunted” the former Wigan Athletic coach in the summer, and since his arrival, Barry’s reputation (and CV) has only been growing. He’s been credited with improving our set pieces (attacking and defensive) and our opposition scouting, among other aspects, and made an excellent first impression (alongside Joe Edwards) on new head coach Thomas Tuchel as well.
Tactical Knowledge
As tactically nuanced and capable as they come, Tuchel’s basic idea of football involves pressing, passing, creating overloads on one side and then switching over to the other side to exploit space. Add in crosses, through balls and quick counter-attacks and you have the basic Tuchel prototype. It’s not necessarily groundbreaking, though what separates him a bit from others, is his use of different formations.
At Mainz, Tuchel stuck to a long-ball tactic with pressing at its forefront to compensate for their relative lack of technical quality, especially in his first few seasons there. Later, after promoting goalkeeper Loris Karius and midfielder Yunus Mallı from youth, they started playing out from the back. During his time at Mainz, Tuchel mostly fielded 4-2-3-1 and 4-1-2-1-2/4-1-3-2 while also surprisingly with a 5-2-2-1 against Bayern.
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