Thomas Tuchel doesn't have too much to prove at Chelsea. After turning a side stuck in ninth into Champions League winners he has made his point. The next stage of his trick is the hardest one, the prestige. He must now show that he can do something extraordinary over a long period of time.
The place that the German manager has looked to start this process is in defence, first focusing on building up his backline once more before venturing forward to the midfield and attack, and that is where the questions lay. Just as his defence became his go to matchwinner on the road to European glory, the attack must be the thing to highlight why Chelsea can become serious title challengers, or at very least close the gap.
The steps to this have started, Raheem Sterling is in the building, Armando Broja is back from loan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is a deal that football.london understands Chelsea are confident will get done. More will follow, but it's not the individual names that wins Tuchel matches over his managerial career.
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The German is a man that has worked his best when looking for strong team links to build-up play. Not limiting creativity, but with devout principles and a desired path for his team to take. That was how previously outcasts Antonio Rudiger and Andreas Christensen became the centre of one of the best defences in the country.
So far the star names, coming from Roman Abramovich's transfer strategy which focused less on the sum of the parts and more on the shiny units used, haven't worked for Tuchel and all of his best performers have been players that thrive off the system rather than making it their own. It's something that has both divided opinion and brought about criticism, but it doesn't look set to stop.
The admiration shown by Tuchel, along with Eddie Howe and Antonio Conte, for Anthony Gordon is reason enough to think he is planning not for a team full of matchwinners to take Chelsea on this season, but for a match-winning team set-up instead.
Gordon has been given a lofty price, £50m would tempt the Toffees, and that is a lot for a player with four Premier League goals, but Tuchel can't put a price on the characteristics that make-up his most important players. The same intangible qualities he saw in Rudiger and Jorginho, the ones he still sees in Mason Mount and Aubameyang, are one of the fundamental aspects to a player that Tuchel needs.
Other than the work-rate and impressive speed he has seen from Gordon himself in person, Tuchel has the backing of fellow managers and also Frank Lampard, who's own description of Gordon makes him a good fit at Chelsea. Lampard said in April, “Anthony is a great kid and possesses one of the greatest young attitudes I’ve experienced in the game. We’re playing against him this weekend and he’s very similar to Mason Mount.
“Very similar in his attitude, application, his talent levels and he’s fine this week, he’s determined, that’s what he is.”
As for what Lampard sees in Mount that Gordon is emulating, that would be his leadership and constant drive to succeed, having praised Mount after leaving Chelsea, saying: "I definitely made him captain that day [against Luton in the FA Cup] because I’ve seen his leadership qualities develop, particularly this season. I saw his leadership skills in his personality developing this season and I’ve always seen it in Mason because there’s a sternness about Mason, there’s a toughness about him.
"He’s a great lad, not always the most vocal but this year he’s starting to be a bit more vocal and he started just to ooze those qualities. So I made him captain for that and I saw him as a future Chelsea captain. That’s obviously other people’s decisions now."
Tuchel has also been full of love for Mount, an extra indication of why he favours his attackers to form a system between them rather than playing for individual quality instead, saying, "It is always a pleasure to work with Mason because he is the kind of guy who comes with a smile on his face to every single training session. It is always 100 per cent in matches, he accepts every challenge and that is why it is so nice to work with him.
"'Mason loves the club, he loves Chelsea. That is how he plays and that is why he has our full support. He is always switched on and ready to push himself to the limit and that is the foundation as to why he gets our full support, because he deserves it."
With this in mind, the logic to signing Gordon is there, something that has been doubted when looking at a pure numerical basis.
Tuchel has worked with players with immense quality, and still has them in his current team, but moving away from Paris Saint-Germain, where he worked with one of the most talented front-lines in world football - Kylian Mbappe, Neymar and Angel Di Maria - it is clear to see why the manager struggled at times to assert his style and power on a team of enormously talented individuals that have tended to play their own game at times. It's something Wayne Rooney has commented on, only adding to the explanation as to why Tuchel prefers his teams to be set up this way.
Speaking after a video of Mbappe giving up during a PSG counter-attack emerged, Rooney said, "A 23-year-old player throwing his shoulder at Messi? I have never seen a bigger ego than this in my life. Someone remind Mbappe, when Messi was 22-years-old, he had four Ballon d'Ors.”
It was an element of the French star's game that Tuchel encountered first hand in Paris. Although he was also described as 'the best', Mbappe also demonstrated a selfish streak that has so far not prospered in one of Tuchel's teams. After he was substituted when 5-0 up Mbappe tried to ignore his manager, growing only frustrated when an explanation and a hug was offered.
Mbappe may have scored 83 goals - with 46 assists too - in 98 games under Tuchel, clearly demonstrating his world-class matchwinning capabilities, but it was Di Maria, the workhorse of a star-studded front three, that played more minutes than Neymar and Mbappe. Tuchel's choice to reward Di Maria's team-play is something that has only been made clearer at Stamford Bridge, and Gordon could be the next player he tries it with.
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