Thomas Tuchel has confirmed he will stay at Chelsea until at least the end of the season and insisted he would drive the sanction-hit club to next week’s Champions League game in Lille himself if he had to.
The Blues boss, speaking after Sunday’s victory over Newcastle thanks to Kai Havertz’s last-gasp winner, revealed little has changed for the club’s first-team set-up so far in the wake of owner Roman Abramovich’s UK Government sanctions.
Abramovich had all his UK assets – barring Chelsea – frozen on Thursday, with the Government claiming to have proved the 55-year-old’s links to Vladimir Putin amid Russia’s continued war in Ukraine.
Tuchel reaffirmed his immediate commitment and expects a sale to be carried out in standard timescale.
“There’s no doubt I’ll stay until the end of the season, absolutely,” the German said.
“We just have to wait and we still have to go day by day because everything can change.
“But as you know, the situation is clear – the club’s for sale, and hopefully it will go through to sort things out and give us a perspective.
“But it’s pure speculation and I have no further information than you already have.
“And that’s what I meant with day by day, which is anyway a good way to live your life, and now we are forced to do it because there are some circumstances we cannot influence, and at some point it’s not so nice because we have no strings to pull and no actions to do to help.
“But on the other side it gives you the freedom to focus on what we can influence, and this is our performances and to show the spirit.
“Because of course the focus is on the first team, our players and me. But Chelsea is much more than the first team of the Premier League – it’s a massive club with huge tradition.
“And there are hundreds of people who I’m pretty sure worry more than our players and staff, me included.
“And for them it’s important that we show the spirit and give them a bit of a distraction, some hope and show what we are about, and we are about football because we love the game.”
Chelsea can only operate under special, stringent Government licence with Abramovich’s other UK assets totally frozen, with travel costs under heavy cap.
The Blues are locked in negotiations with Downing Street over a series of changes that will allow the Champions League holders to carry on as normal.
The Government will oversee the club’s sale, with merchant bank the Raine Group allowed to continue the process that Abramovich started on March 2.
While staff at Chelsea continue to fear for their futures, Tuchel admitted he will do whatever it takes to be in France for Wednesday’s Champions League last-16 second leg.
“My last information is that we have a plane, that we can go by plane and come back by plane,” Tuchel said.
“If not we go by train, if not we go by bus – if not, I drive a seven-seater! And I will do. Mark my words I will do; I will arrive there.
“If you’d asked me 20 or 30 years ago if I would join a Champions League match at the sideline and what I was willing to do I would have said, ‘OK, when do I have to be where?’
“And why should this change? I will be there, we will be there.
“Of course, organisation-wise, there are some negotiations going on and some talks, but it does not influence me.
“We have brilliant guys who organise the travel, and in every department we have such committed people that for the moment things feel normal.
“I think practically things have changed more for the guys who for example organised the journey to Lille, because they had to figure out how we arrive there.
“But in the end I get the information so for me personally when I come to the building, actually nothing has changed so far.
“We do our meetings, we prepare training, we talk to doctors, fitness department, talk to the players and do the best training possible.
“And we demand it, from everybody, because this is what makes Chelsea special, and Chelsea a top club.”
