TOMMY TUCHEL could not have done it better had he submitted his CV to LinkedIn or Indeed.
Somehow mustering some gumption from the worst Bayern Munich team in more than a decade to stop a rampant Arsenal dead in their tracks is a spectacular job advert for a manager soon to be looking for work.
If Man United chief Sir Jim Ratcliffe wasn’t watching from his Old Trafford office or from the cinema room in one of his tax havens, he should have been.
They may have even sat up and taken notice in Newcastle or in the owners’ Riyadh hub as Tuchel reminded everyone of his credentials as a top-level coach with devilish timing.
If change is coming then Tuchel is playing a trump card.
By rights Bayern should have had a penalty against Arsenal in the Champions League on Tuesday.
And with Harry Kane taking it, they would almost certainly be enjoying a 3-2 lead heading into Wednesday’s return leg.
What is fact is that Tuchel’s side turned up and cowed the team that, as far as the current Premier League goes, is the best in England.
It may only add to the questions around Tuchel that after tossing away the only league easier to win than Scotland’s or Spain’s, Munich have sprung to life in Europe.
After 11 years unopposed as German champions, Chelsea’s former manager has chucked it in at home in a remarkable act of ineptitude.
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But freak years can happen.
Leicester have been relegated since beating odds of 5,000-1 to win the 2015-16 Premier league.
Blackburn must surely be an even longer price to ever repeat their title win of 21 years earlier?
Tuchel is an enigma. But that is part of the appeal as much as winning the Champions League with Chelsea just three months after taking the job.
On his first visit back to London since getting the boot from Stamford Bridge in September 2022, the spindly German did not disappoint.
He showed the b******s to drop Bayern legend Thomas Muller from a match which would have had the iconic star’s name all over it only 12 months ago.
That is a call as big as any tactical shift on the pitch. At 34, Muller will have fresher legs next week in the hope of knocking out Arsenal.
Gareth Southgate and Graham Potter are ahead of Tuchel in the bookies’ reckoning to be the next head coach at Manchester United.
Southgate has long been criticised for letting loyalty blind him with England.
Potter succeeded Tuchel at Chelsea and was seen as a ‘yes’ man to eccentric Americans Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali, who appointed him — to the cost of the team.
Take a straw poll outside Stamford Bridge and see how many Chelsea fans would like Tuchel back.
With no new signings, he took a team that had lost five of the previous ten games and led it from mid-table to fourth in 2021.
At the same time they journeyed to the Champions League final, beating Premier League winners Manchester City in Porto. Nine months later they were club champions of the world.
With Ratcliffe considering swingeing budget cuts at Old Trafford, a coach who can perform wonders on peanuts would be music to his ears.
But apart from the fact Tuchel is a proven winner, unafraid to make big decisions and who does things on the cheap, there is one other ingredient to his methods that makes him irresistible.
After Tuesday’s 2-2 draw with Arsenal, during which Kane craftily changed his approach when taking a penalty in a major switch in style, Tuchel admitted they came up with the idea in a lift at the team hotel.
How refreshing to know that even the best sometimes make it up as they go along, like the rest of us.
