If it’s any consolation to Frank Lampard, he’s not the only coach who was catapulted into his role just in time for the Champions League quarter finals in the hope that he might produce some kind of magical bounce, only to see his team fall absolutely flat.
Thomas Tuchel, Lampard’s successor last time he left Chelsea, has been just doing just as badly at Bayern since replacing Julian Nagelsmann before the Manchester City quarter-final. In fact, by some metrics, he’s doing even worse.
When Tuchel took over a month ago, Bayern were still in the German Cup and the Champions League yet are out of both now. He did begin with a thumping 4-2 win over title challengers Borussia Dortmund but since then Bayern have lost three, drawn two and won just one game.
They remain a point behind Dortmund with five games to play after Saturday’s 3-1 defeat at Mainz, Tuchel’s first club as coach, where he was outsmarted by his own former player, Bo Svensson, who is now Mainz coach.
The reason for sacking Nagelsmann was the ‘strong fluctuations in performance’ according to CEO Oliver Kahn. And nothing says ‘steadying the ship’ like a home defeat to Freiburg in the Cup and being so outclassed by Manchester City that the tie is effectively over after one leg.
In fact, Bayern, supposedly a model of stability and decorum compared to the nouveau riche European clubs, have been flailing around this season, especially since the Nageslmann decision.
There was the highly entertaining yet somewhat undignified pre-match exchange between Kahn and his former Germany and Bayern team-mate, Lothar Matthäus, now a TV pundit.
Kahn confronted Matthäus about his suggestion that Bayern had behaved badly in allowing the news of Nagelsmann’s sacking to leak. Prior to the Dortmund match, Kahn turned on Matthäus during a live interview, asking him what he meant by saying there was no more ‘Mia san mia’ at the club – that being the club slogan which loosely translates as ‘we are who we are’.
What Matthäus was alluding to was the lack of class in Nagelsmann findng out that he was sacked from the media. ‘Oliver, I don't wish to get into a personal vendetta with you,’ Matthäus replied. ‘You can call me anytime. The fact is that I have contacts at Bayern that you may not know. I also didn't say that the spirit was getting worse, just that it was different.’
It is perhaps the equivalent of Joel Glazer and Gary Neville getting involved in a heated exchange live on air before a Manchester United-Liverpool match. Great for TV but indicative that something isn’t quite right at the club. (And obviously impossible because the Glazers would never be so open and accountable.)
The truth is Bayern were bounced into appointing Tuchel because they feared he would go elsewhere in the summer and they felt they had a ‘now or never’ ultimatum.
Bayern missed out on Jurgen Klopp and then dithered when they last had the chance to appoint Tuchel in 2018. Whatever Tuchels’ idiosyncrasies, no one would deny he is a top coach and Bayern only should be able to appoint the best German coaches.
Nevertheless, this current meltdown, which means Bayern may now miss out on an 11th successive title, means that a circular firing squad is forming at Bayern. And having removed the human shield of Nagelsmann, they can’t really point the guns at Tuchel quite so soon after he has been appointed.
So it is Khan and Sporting Director Hasan Salihamidzic who are in the firing line. Former Middlesbrough striker, Jan Age Fjortoft, now a well-connected Bundesliga expert, tweeted after the City game that his sources at Bayern had told him that Kahn’s own job as CEO would be up for discussion in the summer, having failed to live up to expectation.
The transfer strategy under Salihamidzic is also under fire. Sadio Mane has been a failure and, notwithstanding the fine form of Eric Choupo-Moting, the former Stoke City striker isn’t quite what Bayern had in mind to replace Robert Lewandowski.
It would previously have been a done deal that a striker like Erling Haaland, having outgrown Borussia Dortmund, would move on to Bayern. Yet the world is bigger and the horizons of the current generation of players much broader.
Bayern can’t win bidding races against Manchester City. And they are unlikely to tempt Harry Kane to the Bundesliga this summer, so Eintracht Frankurt’s Randal Kolo Muani might be their best bet.
Usually they could rely on Borussia Dortmund caving in under pressure and handing them the title. Indeed, when Dortmund let slip a 2-0 lead against ten-man VfB Stuttgart last week, that seemed to be the narrative arc of the season.
Yet in a plot twist, Dortmund looked super authoritative in their 4-0 win over Eintracht Frankfurt at the weekend. With apologies to Oscar Wilde, to lose all three trophies having appointed a manager to turbo charge your season begins to looks a little careless. At least Lampard is only responsible for Chelsea’s Champions League exit.
If Carlsberg did season-defining results that leave you on the brink of winning the title, surely Napoli’s win at Juventus last Sunday night would be the definitive performance. It had everything a fan could want.
With the game finely poised, Angel di Maria thought he had it won for Juventus on 82 minutes, with a super finish at the end of a superb move, which was shockingly ruled out by VAR for Arkadiusz Milik’s tackle on Napoli’s Stanislav Lobotka in the build-up.
Dusan Vlahovic then seem to have scored for Juventus in the dying minutes but the ball was ruled out of play before the cross was delivered. And so it was that in the 96th minute that a lovely strike from Giacomo Raspadori sealed the win for Napoli and pretty much the title.
Winning at your hated rivals, the epitome of the northern establishment looking down its nose at the south, and doing so courtesy of last kick of the game, when your opponents have had a good goal ruled out is surely about as good as it gets for a Napoli fan?
If results go their way, Napoli could officially to seal the first title since 1990 this weekend. And if you want a preview of what that party is going to be look like, check out Frank Zambo Anguissa’s Instagram feed of the astonishing scenes in Naples when the team arrived home from Turin at 3.30am on Monday morning.
It includes the video designed to induce heart palpitations in all police traffic control officers, with hundreds of mopeds weaving in and out to accompany the team coach home, all at top speed with not a safety helmet in sight. The foremost moped appears to have three people riding it. If it’s like this now, what is going to happen when they do win the title?
