In the end there was no shortage of smoke but simply no fire where Maurizio Sarri and Chelsea were concerned.
They just did not get along. Perhaps they were never meant for each other.
Sarri could not deliver the sparkling football and endless victories they craved but Chelsea were not the club he thought they were, with their remote owner, a strangely sparse executive tier and players who have long since understood how the manager is the most disposable of them all.
It turns out Maurizio Sarri's relationship with Chelsea wasn't a match made in heaven
Behind the scenes, they all rubbed each other up the wrong way and this decision to part amicably after one turbulent season is surely for the best.
Sarri delivered on his brief to lead Chelsea back into the Champions League and they helped him win his first major trophy. Few supporters really warmed to him, particularly the hardcore of match-goers.
They never connected in the way they did with Antonio Conte, Jose Mourinho or Carlo Ancelotti, the three managerial success stories of the trigger-happy Roman Abramovich era.
Conte threw himself into the crowd when his team scored. Ancelotti exuded a personal warmth and Mourinho delivered unprecedented success on the pitch while proving a pioneer in the art of self-promotion.
Sarri had zero interest in self-promotion. There is not a trace of vanity about him. Perhaps this ought to be applauded as an antidote to modern society but a modern football club expects some degree of charm or charisma from its frontman in the age of brand expansion.
Sarri delivered on achieving the targets and won his first major trophy as a manager last month
He is the face of the club but Sarri often cut a curious figure on the touchline, chewing and sucking on a cigarette butt.
A whiff of nicotine would trail behind him as he trundled around the training ground or the corridors of Stamford Bridge and this jarred inside an elite sporting operation. He is not the first modern Chelsea manager to smoke. Gianluca Vialli, Roberto di Matteo and Ancelotti liked a cigarette but not to the same degree.
Sarri loathed his media, commercial and ambassadorial duties, and dodged them when he could. Gianfranco Zola would be summoned to replace him.
Or he forgot because they were never in the centre of his thoughts. Chelsea were reprimanded by the Premier League for missing media deadlines when he locked his players in the dressing room for an inquest of more than an hour after a 4-0 defeat at Bournemouth.
The post-season match in the United States against New England Revolution was the epitome of this.
Sarri did not lift a finger to promote the charity venture planned by Abramovich and Revs owner Robert Kraft to raise funds and awareness to fight anti-Semitism and other forms of discrimination.
Few Chelsea supporters really warmed to him, particularly the hardcore of match-goers
They raised more than £3million but the manager grumbled about the game getting in the way of preparations for the Europa League final, failed to attend any of the media engagements in Boston and did not join a visit to the city’s Holocaust Memorial or a formal dinner at Kraft’s mansion because he was feeling unwell.
Sarri would not applaud the travelling fans after an away game. One of his many superstitions was to avoid stepping on the pitch.
He had to be cajoled by club officials to lead out the team at Wembley for the pre-match ceremony in the FA Community Shield, his first game.
He did, however, realise when the supporters turned against him in mid-season with protest chants and jeering Jorginho, the player so integral to his tactical system.
Few could see why Sarri indulged the Italy international who followed him from Napoli at a cost of £56million, to the extent where he marginalised N’Golo Kante, who had been the best midfielder in the Premier League for three years.
He promised to restore ‘fun’ to Chelsea when he arrived with great fanfare to replace Conte and the season started so well.
But the football became dull as soon as opponents fathomed out how they could drop deep and let Chelsea pass sideways until they came to a standstill or cause them problems on the turnover by hustling the supply lines around Jorginho.
He loathed his media, commercial and ambassadorial duties, and dodged them when he could
When the results turned, the board and the players, like the fans, were left wondering why the manager did not seem inclined to react and make adjustments to his trusted strategy.
Sarri was not disliked. Indeed he has a sharp sense of humour — when asked if he had ever tried to quit smoking he said he had once quit for a couple of hours — but many came to find his training regime a drag.
