Chelsea eventually opted for Tuchel and are unbeaten in his first five matches
Ralf Rangnick has revealed he nearly became Chelsea manager following the sacking of Frank Lampard.
The German says he was approached by the club with a view to taking over until the end of the season, but turned down the offer as he was unwilling to be manager on an interim basis.
His countryman Thomas Tuchel eventually took the job, signing an 18-month contract with an option for one more year.
Rangnick, who left RB Leipzig in 2019, is currently without a club.
Tuchel, meanwhile, has enjoyed a solid start to his time at Stamford Bridge, and is unbeaten in his first five matches.
He’s engineered four wins in a row, with three of them coming in the Premier League. That run has lifted Chelsea to fifth in the table, just a point behind last season’s champions Liverpool and with a game in hand.
Rangnick told the Times: “I said ‘I would love to come and work with you, but I cannot do it for four months. I am not an interim coach’.
“To the media and players you would be the ‘four-month manager’, a lame duck, from day one.”
On Tuchel, he said: “Thomas became a coach through me. He was my player at Ulm and had to finish his career because of knee problems.
“I gave him a job as our Under-15 coach. He didn’t even intend being a coach, he was working at a bar in Stuttgart.
“If you watch Chelsea now you see a mutual plan for when they have the ball or the other team have the ball. Thomas is tactically on a very sophisticated level.
“Zsolt Low (Tuchel’s assistant) was my player and assistant coach at Leipzig and plays a vital role in his staff, and you can see from the way he interacts with players Thomas also has great leadership skills.
“Appointing him was a top solution. I can only congratulate Thomas and Chelsea for the choice.”
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