Thomas Tuchel has denied Gary Neville’s claims that Chelsea’s new owner Todd Boehly is “panicking” in the transfer market.
US billionaire Boehly has gone on a big-money spending spree with Brighton ’s Marc Cucurella the latest deal as he is joining for £60m-plus.
Sky pundit Neville has accused Boehly of behaving like he wants to play “Football Manager” and said: “He’s wandering around a little bit and they’re a bit panicky now. They’re almost like bouncing around because it feels like he has to do something.”
But Tuchel hit back: “(Gary Neville said) panicking? No. I would describe it as super hard working, learning new on the job so it is pretty much going on. New ownership, stepping in the transfer market is one of the toughest things you can do.
“I have nothing but the biggest respect and compliments for both Todd and Behdad Eghbal. I don’t know when they sleep, maybe they never sleep. We have a very honest, open, direct line of communication.
“The transfers so far speak for themselves. We have a delay, of course. Nobody is guilty, it’s because of the sanctions. This led to the loss of key players but like I said both of the owners involved in the daily business do fantastic jobs so far. The transfer market speaks for itself.”
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Chelsea boss Tuchel also praised new boy Cucurella who was announced Friday lunchtime ahead of the trip to Everton. He will compete with Ben Chilwell after his knee injury.
Tuchel said: “He is a fantastic, young player. Hungry, mobile, very intelligent player. Can play several positions in our system.
“Absolutely it helps in depth and especially for Ben Chilwell to escape the pressure of ‘I have to deliver. We need you absolutely now’. We have, of course, also in this position Marcos Alonso, Kenedy and Emerson.”
Chelsea have already forked out more than £100million this summer after swooping to land Raheem Sterling in a shock deal from Manchester City, as well as Kalidou Koulibaly from Napoli and youngster Carney Chukwuemeka from Aston Villa.
Asked if he was surprised to have snapped up Sterling from reigning champions City, Tuchel replied: "Surprised is not the right word. Any player with a one year contract, you can try. We had the feeling he would be the perfect fit for us at this stage of his career and he felt happy to make this step and join a new club and take on more responsibility at this stage of his career. So we tried and we succeeded."
On Koulibaly he added: "We got always the same feedback: fantastic guy, leader in the dressing room, calm, a role model. When you dig in and start analysing his games, you see the quality of his defending, his body positioning, he uses left and right foot for build-up, and he is very experienced. So when we had the chance we went for it."
