Long-time Chelsea goalkeeper coach Christophe Lollichon rubbishes France return fake news

Before reuniting with Petr Čech at Chelsea in 2007, Christophe Lollichon served as the goalkeeping coach at Stade Rennais for a decade, acquiring a strong reputation for innovation and excellence, which he then furthered at Chelsea as well. From 2007 to 2016, Lollichon trained Čech, Cudicini, Hilário, and several others, with the latter then joining him as part of the coaching staff as well.

But Lollichon also had a reputation for being a fiery character and at times even a controversial one as well. Despite that, he has managed to stick around through thick and thin, even after Čech went across town to Arsenal in 2015.

A year later however, Lollichon was removed from first-team duty thanks largely to Thibaut Courtois, who apparently wasn’t a huge fan of his methods — although Conte ended up bringing in his own man, Gianluca Spinelli (whose Instagram, especially his stories, are 90 per cent about his dog and thus, amazing) rather than Thibaut’s preference. Since then, Lollichon has been working with the academy and loan groups. And it looks like he’s set to continue in at least that role even as the first-team coaching staff goes through another reset.

Yesterday, Lollichon was reported to have accepted a sporting director role with French third division team AGL-Drapeau Fougères. But the 49-year-old has rubbished that story on this Twitter account, explaining that he was just doing a favor for his friend, Fougères president Michaël Linhoff, and stating clearly that his “work is in London, nowhere else”.

Incidentally, with Čech set to return to Chelsea as technical director, Lollichon could be in line for increased influence as well. In fact, with goalkeeper coach Massimo Nenci presumably following Sarri back to Italy as well, a vacancy could be opening up on the goalkeeper-coaching staff alongside Hilário.

Either way, Lollichon isn’t going anywhere and is set to continue for a 13th year (and beyond) at Chelsea.