MY ACCOUNT
Chelsea head coach Thomas Tuchel has said he is hopeful the takeover of the club will go through “as quickly as possible”.
The Blues agreed to terms for the sale of the club to an ownership group led by Todd Boehly, Clearlake Capital, Mark Walter and Hansjorg Wyss for £4.25billion earlier in May.
The takeover, which promises investment of £1.75billion into the club, was expected to be completed later this month, but recent reports have suggested Roman Abramovich could scupper the deal by refusing to the sale structure.
Speaking at a media conference ahead of Chelsea’s game with Leicester, Tuchel simply claimed he wanted things to happen sooner rather than later.
He said: “I’m aware [of the reports] but I’ve no new information. I’ve not been informed about the character of the issues that have arrived. So let’s wait.
“I’m still convinced it’s in good hands, not my hands. Hopefully, it will go through as quickly as possible.”
Chelsea agonisingly lost the FA Cup final on Saturday to Liverpool in a penalty shootout, the second time they have been beaten in such fashion by the Reds having also been denied in the Carabao Cup final in February.
However, Tuchel was keen to dismiss the idea that losing two shoot-outs makes the season a failure for his team, who also fell away in the Premier League title race after a run of games between December and January that saw them win only one of seven outings (D5, L1).
Chelsea will confirm third place in the league should they beat Leicester at Stamford Bridge on Thursday.
Tuchel added: “I refuse to judge the season by two penalty shootouts.
“If we won both, it would be one of the most successful seasons with four titles [after winning the European Super Cup and Club World Cup].
“We lost two but it doesn’t make it less impressive what the team put in. But we’re the first to admit that it’s not the same to play a final and win a final.
“So it’s a bit of an imbalance judging the season given the circumstances. We struggled with coronavirus, long-term injuries, a war that had a big effect on our club in particular.
“There’s always room for improvement, but we arrived in this [FA Cup] with key players out, Mateo [Kovacic] and N’Golo [Kante] with only half a training session, with the club sanctions, there is a lot of things that are impressive.
“Hopefully, we can come third and that is progression.
“We maybe compete against the best teams to play in this league. So from there we go. There is no need to lose sleep and think we should’ve done this and this.
“There is a lot of ambition in us that we are not satisfied.”
