Chelsea are reportedly set to reward Thomas Tuchel with a bumper new deal after his impressive start to life at Stamford Bridge.
Tuchel has only lost two of his 25 matches in charge since taking over from Frank Lampard at the end of January.
Not only has he led the Blues to the Champions League and FA Cup finals, he has also guided them to fourth in the Premier League despite it looking unlikely they would finish in the top four when he took over.
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And the Daily Mail claims that Chelsea are ‘set to offer Thomas Tuchel a new contract at the end of the season as a reward for his spectacular success’.
Despite him having an extension clause in his 18-month contract, the Blues are keen ‘to tie him down to a new two-year contract with the option for a third year’.
The report adds that the German is ‘keen to sign the new deal’ with Chelsea set to boost his £7m-a-year salary.
With the two cup finals coming up, Chelsea will leave proper talks over the new contract until the end of the season to avoid distractions.
The newspaper adds that the west London club will ‘also seek to tie down’ midfielder N’Golo Kante to fresh terms, while they are keen to trigger the extension clause in Thiago Silva’s deal at Stamford Bridge.
Meanwhile, Tuchel claims Chelsea will prepare for the Champions League final in the “true belief” they can beat Manchester City.
Tuchel’s side have now beaten their final opponents twice in recent weeks following Saturday’s 2-1 Premier League victory at the Etihad Stadium.
The London outfit were also triumphant when the sides met in the FA Cup semi-finals at Wembley last month.
Chelsea manager Tuchel accepts these results may not have a huge bearing on the May 29 showpiece – after all City made multiple changes for both games – but they cannot damage confidence.
The German said: “I said before it would not change too much, no matter what result came out of this game.
“I will stick with that but surely it’s not a disadvantage for us to have this experience, in such a short time, of beating them twice.
“We know very well that if you play a final, it’s very special and you fight for every centimetre and every advantage that you can make to win the game.
“But, yes, it gives us the true belief that we can do it because we’ve already done it. We’ll try to conserve the feeling and this momentum for our arrival in Istanbul, because we’ll arrive with a clear target and a clear objective to win.
“The best way to play a final is to be self-confident and I think we can conserve this feeling from these two matches.”