Chelsea look to get knockout strategy back on track in FA Cup after Kepa's spot of bother

In his 400 days since taking charge of Chelsea, Thomas Tuchel has guided them to four major finals in four different competitions. He’s won two and lost two, but can convincingly argue that the global reach of the pair he was victorious in — the Champions League and Club World Cup — mean he is more than breaking even.

The lost finals — last May against Leicester City in the FA Cup, and Sunday’s defeat via a marathon penalty shoot-out to Liverpool in the League Cup, were domestic prizes — and in the second of them, Chelsea can hardly be scorned for not providing amply to a brilliant contest, nor to adding a fresh talking point about Tuchel’s detailed strategic thinking.

The German has a knack of successfully negotiating knockout competitions. Two successive Champions League finals, with two different clubs — Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea — in the last two seasons endorse that. Both were journeys characterised by telling substitutions at key stages, and if any manager can truly claim to influence the high-pressure, one-against-one duel that is a penalty shoot-out to decide the destiny of a trophy, Tuchel is that manager.

He won a further ‘final’ last August, the one-off Uefa Super Cup, victory over Villarreal decided by shoot-out and featuring a change of goalkeeper at the end of extra-time.

On that occasion, Kepa Arrizabalaga concentrated a full two years worth of emotion into 20 minutes. He, the most expensive goalkeeper in history, had lost his place as Chelsea’s first choice in 2020. But Tuchel, advised by a team of analysts and his own instincts, deems Kepa superior in one aspect to Edouard Mendy, the keeper who had eclipsed Kepa in the hierarchy: Saving penalties. So Kepa came on for Mendy simply for the shoot-out