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Bayern Munich are a club that usually get what they want, especially when it comes to bringing in the best talent available within German football. Yet in the case of Thomas Tuchel, they will not be getting their man.

The former head coach of the Bavarians' competitive domestic rivals Borussia Dortmund has said no to replacing Jupp Heynckes in the dugout this summer. According to reports in Germany, the 44-year-old has already accepted an offer to take charge of another top European club next season.

Half complete stories create mysteries that need solving and in the immediate reaction to the news, lines were quickly drawn to link the ex-Mainz manager with Arsenal. Broadcaster Derek Rae even tweeted about sharing a flight with Tuchel back to Dusseldorf from London. Stories emerged that negotiations were already underway with the Gunners.

Arsene Wenger was finally set to walk away from the hot seat to be succeeded by one of the most highly-rated young coaches in the game, who Pep Guardiola himself had picked out as the most worthy successor to continue his work in Munich.

On one level, it all made sense. In Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang he would be reunited with two thirds of the front three that fired his Dortmund side to a record-breaking season in the Bundesliga in 2016.

(Image: Alexandre Simoes/Borussia Dortmund/Getty Images)

Under Tuchel, the Armenian hit new heights. The Gabonese striker became one of the most prolific strikers in world football. Dortmund scored 82 league goals, the most in their history in a single season since the formation of the German topflight, and accumulated 78 points.

Only in their title-winning campaigns under Jurgen Klopp had they bettered that total. It still stands as the best finish from a team not to lift the title in the history of the competition, a year on from a near total collapse that saw Dortmund miss out on Champions League football and spend a few weeks flirting with the relegation battle.

What's more, the football was as thrilling as it was effective, and sophisticated too. Gone was the do-or-die, all-or-nothing approach of Tuchel's predecessor - a brand of football that saw players thrown forward in great numbers, often leaving the defence exposed, as remains the case with Liverpool today.

It was replaced by a more astute way of overwhelming opponents with the young Julian Weigl brought in to concentrate on recycling possession to help ramp up the intensity through superior use of the ball, rather than keeping it for the sake of it, or through sheer weight of numbers.

Dortmund could still be a ferocious in the final third but Tuchel made sure it was a more controlled aggression. There was a collective intelligence to their play on the pitch made possible by hours of hard work on the training pitch learning how to manipulate the opposition and unsettle their shape through pre-prepared moves and drills to ensure they always had some semblance of plan of attack whatever scenario they found themselves in.

It was easy on the eye, accentuated the qualities of the players available to the team and helped to cover for their weaknesses. All in all, exactly what many Arsenal fans are looking for in Wenger's successor.

However, if any London-based club were in a position to offer the German another coaching assignment this summer it would be Chelsea. The Gunners may have players with the technical skill to play the Tuchel way, and a manager on the brink, but they also have Sven Mislintat.

(Image: DPA Picture Alliance)

In fact, it could be argued that they were only able to appoint the former Dortmund talent chief as their new head of recruitment due to total breakdown in relationships between the former head scout and Dortmund's then head coach.

Their falling out played its part in Tuchel's dismissal and there would need to be a serious change in their relationship for the pair to work together again. According to Kicker those conversations have already taken place but whether they are truly ready to set their differences aside that remains to be seen.

Perhaps those conversations have already taken place to clear the air behind the scenes and Arsenal fans will be encouraged by Kicker’s report that the pair are indeed ready to set their differences aside but that remains to be seen. Other outlets in Germany have disputed these claims.

It would be some change of heart for Mislintat to be involved in appointing a manager who banned him from the Dortmund training ground back in 2017.

Whereas Chelsea seem set to dispense with Antonio Conte's services at the end of the season, with Roman Abramovich once more seeking a new figurehead on the touchline to depart from what went before.

Tuchel is often characterised as a cold and calculated analyst of the game. His lack of fire and gusto led to unfavourable comparisons with the heart-on-the-sleeve antics of his predecessor, Klopp. His presence at Stamford Bridge would cut quite the contrast to Conte, even if the Italian and the German are both excellent tacticians.

At Mainz, and later at Dortmund, the former front-runner for the Bayern gig developed a reputation for being a highly creative and resourceful coach. He found ways to work around the lack of money available at the former while exploiting the untapped potential of players by redeploying them in novel or unorthodox roles at the latter, bringing youngsters to fill the gaps left by major sales.

Ousmane Dembele thrived under his tutelage, enough to convince Barcelona to splurge out on signing the Frenchman to replace Neymar, and other youthful talents found plenty of opportunities to make a serious impression.

Raphael Guerreiro arrived as a left-back in 2016 only to find himself playing as an attacking midfielder. Advocates of Chelsea's academy system should be licking their lips at the prospect of seeing Tuchel let loose on the next batch of players coming off the production line. It could be great news for the likes of Ruben Loftus-Cheek too, once they return from loan.

For a time, anyway. Tuchel is not an easy personality to work with judging by the views of those who have had dealings with him. At a club such as Chelsea were constant political intrigue in the corridors of power is a fact of life he could easily trip himself up, but he has also been a name on the radar for the Blues for quite some time.

Back in August 2017, rumours swirled over an agreement that would see the German come in to replace Conte at the end of the season. The Premier League champions were quick to shoot down the story only for more reports to surface in February this year.

Maurizio Sarri, manager of Napoli, has been another name regularly linked with the Chelsea, and while his team may be in vogue this season, their slick, system-based style of play shares many of the same features and strengths of Tuchel's work at Dortmund. After two years of Conte and his own focus on "automations" when it comes to coaching how he wants his players to attack, the Blues are well set for a coach of their ilk.

Unless Paris Saint-Germain make a play for him, or Mislintat is ready to forgive and forget, there's only one London club in the position to offer Tuchel a fresh start, and it's not Arsenal.

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