Chelsea have become a trophy winning team again under Tuchel. What will this season look like?

Chelsea had a fantastic end to the season last season, and they have started this year just as well! What does Honza Homolka, who leads the biggest Czech-Slovak fan club Chelsea FC, expect from this season?

How satisfied were you with the past season, which you finished in style?

Of course, winning the Champions League raised the evaluation of the past season a whole order of magnitude higher. Without it, the assessment of the season would have been very contradictory. The results crisis at the turn of last autumn and winter cost the place of fan favourite Frank Lampard.

Losing the FA Cup final and finishing 4th in the league, which we only held on to thanks to a stumble by the competition in the last round didn’t boost morale either. So winning the CL was a huge morale boost. The women’s team also made us happy, while the juniors didn’t do too well.

How do you feel about the “new” coach Thomas Tuchel?

I rate him very positively so far and I hope he will be around for a while. Thomas Tuchel had an extremely difficult task ahead of him – taking over from a manager who was the heartthrob of a large section of the fanbase (although some acknowledged that Lampard’s lack of experience was beginning to show). A team that had a lot of out of form players, including big reinforcements.

He took on this task to perfection, with almost immediate improvement, especially defensively, which ultimately proved crucial to the end of the season. There are still reserves in the offensive part of the game, but I believe there will be improvement there as well.

What do you think about the interim transfers?

As far as the interim transfers are concerned, I think there can be a healthy optimism, the club has correctly identified the positions where they need to add players and are now trying to bring in the right ones.

Romelu Lukaku could indeed be the one who will finally contribute to improving our offensive performance. It remains to be seen whether Chelsea will also manage to complete the much speculated transfer of stopper Jules Kounde, however, after Trevoh Chalobah’s performances in the pre-season and the Super Cup, a section of fans are wondering whether it would be better to focus all efforts on acquiring a central midfielder in addition to a stopper.

Among the names often linked with Chelsea are Declan Rice and Aurelien Tchouameni. Further signings would then depend on the eventual departure of one of the current A-team players.

What I would criticise, on the other hand, and where Chelsea still have a lot of work to do, is sorting out the departures of surplus players.

What do you expect from the new season?

The expectations are clear – an assault on the title and progression to the final stages of the cup competitions. Nothing else is out of the question. Personally, I expect (and wish) to win at least one trophy.