Can Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel build on 12 months of success at Stamford Bridge?

As Tuchel was well aware when he came to London, success is all that matters at Stamford Bridge. But combining trophies and tranquillity has proved tricky for even such former bosses as Jose Mourinho, Carlo Ancelotti and Antonio Conte.

Tuchel has made a decent fist of it, though. Winning Chelsea a second Champions League, by beating Manchester City in the final, earned him a contract extension to 2024, which he wants to see out even if he says “history tells us that it’s not that easy”.

For now, he says: “I don’t want to be anywhere else.”

But, more importantly, he has his eyes on a Chelsea future and has taken time to lay some firm foundations over the past year with players, staff and the club’s hierarchy.

Despite Heidel saying Tuchel is “a little bit more introverted” than Klopp, he did host a barbecue at his house following the Champions League triumph to thank staff for all their hard work.

And where Lampard, a legendary Blues player, struggled to connect with all of his squad, which eventually led to his downfall, Tuchel’s natural communication skills have kept his players engaged.

His ability to bring out the best in Antonio Rudiger, who fell out with Lampard, and reintegrate Ben Chilwell after leaving him out earlier in the season are good examples of this.

Those skills have been put to the test by Romelu Lukaku, however, after the club’s record £97.5m signing conducted an unsanctioned interview with Italian TV last month, where the striker questioned his role in the team and Tuchel’s methods.

In the media conference that followed, 16 of the 20 questions put to Tuchel were about Lukaku, but he remained calm and composed. He said he’d had “more difficult quotes crop up in my past” and laid down the challenge to his frontman to respond on the pitch.

Whether Lukaku has done that is open to debate, particularly after a poor run of results, and may be the key to Chelsea’s fortunes this season.

But deep in that media conference was a revealing insight into how Tuchel tackled the episode – with support from those in the leadership team.