Chelsea’s ruthless reputation for sacking managers continues

Chelsea’s ruthless reputation for sacking managers, irrespective of previous success and reputation, lives on with the brutal dismissal of Thomas Tuchel.

If anyone believed new owner Todd Boehly would adopt a lighter and more sympathetic touch to those inhabiting the manager’s office at Stamford Bridge than predecessor Roman Abramovich they can now think again. The same rules apply. Poor results equal the sack. Quickly.

Boehly’s turbulent first 100 days in charge at Chelsea ended with the abrupt removal of the man who won the Champions League in May 2021, six months after arriving to replace sacked Frank Lampard.

The American’s hands-on approach, coupled with the lack of a sporting director after key figures such as director Marina Granovskaia and technical and performance advisor Petr Cech left, has made Stamford Bridge appear to be an unsettled and somewhat chaotic place.

Sacking a manager just days after Chelsea spent more in one transfer window than any other British club in history, £255.3m according to financial services firm Deloitte, only adds to that impression.

Boehly has certainly proved his ambition and financial power but he has made a very bold call sacking Tuchel, one of the game’s elite managers, so soon after taking control at the club, although it has appeared all has not been well behind the scenes at Chelsea for some time.

There seemed to be an uneasy relationship between manager and boardroom, with Tuchel issuing several coded messages of mild discontent about transfer policy during the summer. Boehly’s strategy was more inclusive than the distance applied by Abramovich and Granovskaia and Tuchel seemed to have not enjoyed the change.

The collaborative approach suggests not all transfer targets were Tuchel’s although the deadline day arrival of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who worked successfully with the German at Borussia Dortmund, from Barcelona certainly had his prints on it. He told the BBC in the summer: “The relationship with the owners is very intense, very close, which it has to be because without Petr and without Marina it’s a big change in the daily structure and communication.

“I’m a lot more involved. I have to step up in terms of responsibility. I think in the long-term or even when the close of pre-season comes, I will want to be more on the coaching role again.”

It never happened. Tuchel won the Champions League without additions to his Chelsea squad but struggled to replicate that success once the new buys flowed in with Romelu Lukaku — not Boehly’s doing, it should be stressed — a horrendous failure at £97.5m and now back at Inter Milan.

The manager appeared to give up on Lukaku very quickly, resulting in what will eventually be a very heavy financial hit for the club.

Even so, Chelsea were close to trophies last season, only losing the League Cup and FA Cup Finals to Liverpool on penalties. Boehly has certainly given Tuchel reinforcements this summer with England forward Raheem Sterling, defender Kalidou Koulibaly, Brighton left-back Marc Cucurella and Leicester City’s young French central defender Wesley Fofana, in at an eye-popping £70m, added to the squad among others.

And yet the pressure has ratcheted up with poor early season performances, including disappointing losses at Leeds United and Southampton, with the decision to sack him taken before the shock Champions League loss away to Dinamo Zagreb on Tuesday.

Boehly has been the subject of jibes from outside Chelsea suggesting that he is a new arrival playing a form of fantasy football but the other side of the coin is that he made serious statements about his ambition both with his transfer activity and now Tuchel’s sacking.

Chelsea’s ownership group have clearly seen enough over these first 100 days, both from Tuchel and the team he controls, to decide he is not the man for them and move on. Very swiftly.

While Tuchel’s spat with Spurs manager Antonio Conte during and at the end of the 2-2 draw at Stamford Bridge, which led to Football Association censure, might be put down to passions running high, the manager has cut a discontented figure throughout much of the early season, perhaps a sign of events bubbling beneath the surface.

He has, by all accounts, become a more detached personality with players and board, poor results and performances only speeding his demise. Chelsea has simply not appeared a happy camp in recent months,

Tuchel, who will not struggle for future employment with his stellar record, can rightly say he would have needed more time and patience to mould Chelsea’s expensively reshaped squad but history tells us, over many years with Abramovich and now in 100 days under Boehly, that those two commodities are next to non-existent at Stamford Bridge. It is big decision by Boehly and his boardroom cohorts but is it the right one?

Chelsea have often turned the old laws of running a club upside down by thriving on instability and managerial churn. Roberto Di Matteo winning the FA Cup and the Champions League as an interim in 2012 is the prime example. This, however, is a move laced with high-risk and Boehly must get his choice of successor right.

Abramovich may have sacked many managers but was adept at choosing a replacement to maintain success. Boehly is unproven. It is likely, if the contracts given to new signings and players already at Chelsea are anything to go by, that Tuchel’s successor will be given a long-term deal and will be someone who must be part of the collaborative outlook Boehly wants.

He will have to work quickly to bolt all Chelsea’s new signings on to those already at the club, never an easy task anywhere but arguably even harder given the club’s expectations to compete for the Premier League and Champions League.

Boehly made plenty of big statements in the transfer market this summer. He has now made his biggest of all by sacking Thomas Tuchel. And much of Boehly’s reputation and standing among Chelsea fans will now rest on the success of his next move.