Thomas Tuchel failed to deliver on the ambitions of mega-rich owners at Paris St Germain and faces similarly high expectations under the ruthless Roman Abramovich at Chelsea.
The 47-year-old was dismissed by PSG in late December last year, and had been a dead man walking for days before the capital club finally confirmed his exit.
It could all have been very different if he had delivered the Champions League success PSG crave, and he came close before a German team – Bayern Munich – sank his ambitions at the final hurdle last August.
He was unable to break the dominance of Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga and the 2017 DFB-Pokal (German Cup) was the only title he won at Dortmund.
Various theories were put forward for his exit, including that he and the club's chief executive had fallen out over the decision to go ahead with a Champions League tie against Monaco less than 24 hours after three explosions close to the team's bus in April 2017.
He arrived in Paris in the springtime of 2018. Winning Ligue 1 is, of course, the bare minimum expected at a PSG side with vastly superior resources to any other club in the division, and he achieved back-to-back titles in 2019 and 2020 – but all PSG bosses are judged by European performance.
He survived a last-16 elimination to Manchester United in his first season and last summer the holy grail was in touching distance against Bayern, only for Parisian Kingsley Coman to dash French hopes.
Lampard lost his job after results failed to match the most ambitious recruitment drive of any club in the world in 2020.
Tuchel will aim to make two of those expensive recruits – fellow Germans Timo Werner and Kai Havertz – the key cornerstones of his project in SW6.
