The Antonio Conte and Maurizio Sarri mistakes Thomas Tuchel has avoided to thrive at Chelsea

A year ago, I was grief-stricken at the termination of Frank Lampard’s contract as Chelsea manager.

It wasn’t just that our best player of all time, a bonafide legend, a man who intuitively understood and empathised with the supporters, had been jettisoned like so many before him. It was that a dream had seemingly been extinguished with his dismissal.

Many supporters felt Lampard was the right man at the right time: a manager who, albeit forced to do so, would focus on finally introducing a raft of talented players emerging from Chelsea’s much-vaunted academy.

Furthermore, due to his close relationship with the board, we believed he would be given the chance to develop the team organically and bring an end to the boom-and-bust cycle and managerial merry-go-round the club have been locked into since 2003.

But it was not to be. Chelsea, in unseemly haste, hired the next cab off the rank in Thomas Tuchel, who had been sacked by Paris Saint Germain just over a month before.

I bore no ill-will towards Tuchel. It wasn’t his fault that he’d usurped Lampard and hi credentials seemed reasonably good. After all, he’d led PSG to the Champions League final the season before where they were narrowly defeated by a very good Bayern Munich side.

However, with the trauma of Lampard being dismissed I swore that I would never again fall in love with another Chelsea manager. What was the point when they last on average about 18 months? Why put yourself in a position where you must experience loss and grief on a repeat cycle?

Tuchel’s first press conference was soothing as he paid due deference to Lampard’s legacy. No arrogant pronouncements that he was special or an unwillingness to apologise for previous slanders against the club and