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Wednesday marked 100 days of the new era at Chelsea, following their takeover by the Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital consortium. Tuesday night was Thomas Tuchel’s 100th game in charge of the club.
Due to very different reasons neither will forget the landmarks in a hurry. For Boehly and Co the century will be remembered for how it coincided with their first ever Chelsea sacking.
For Tuchel a ton of games in charge was where his Chelsea reign came to a seemingly abrupt end.
New controlling owner Todd Boehly (right) has waited just 100 days before changing manager
Chelsea fans have been left stunned by the news that the club have sacked Thomas Tuchel
The ruthless nature of it - just seven competitive games into this season and their reign, a sacking delivered face-to-face yesterday morning and described as ‘a quick one’ - coming just hours after Chelsea’s shock Champions League defeat at Dinamo Zagreb, may appear premature.
Boehly and fellow co-controlling owner Behdad Eghbali were among those from the Chelsea hierarchy in Zagreb to witness Tuchel's final game but his departure is far from purely results-related.
Long-running tensions have been building behind the scenes and led to the irreparable breakdown in relations. And without good results, performances and having his players onside to fall back on, Tuchel eventually ran out of reasons to be kept on.
Given how it started it is incredible to see how quickly things unravelled. New to football, Chelsea’s new owners were initially very keen to work with the manager they inherited on their arrival, construct the off-field team to lead the club forward and support him in any way they could. Their near £300m spend on transfers during the summer underlines that.
In those early days a new contract for Tuchel was one of the issues they wanted to get around to. But as the summer developed Chelsea’s new owners detected warning signs that left them feeling their partnership with Tuchel was not going to work long-term, there was no bright future ahead and that he was not the ‘team player’ manager they were after. Senior figures at Borussia Dortmund and Paris Saint-Germain, where Tuchel also had fallings out, might recognise the conclusion Chelsea’s chiefs have swiftly reached and why.
Chelsea’s pre-season campaign was when cracks began to emerge and become apparent to a wider audience. Tuchel, unhappily having to get more involved in transfers after losing the trusted network that included director Marina Granovskaia and technical and performance advisor Petr Cech that he so valued and missed, cut a noticeably frustrated figure while Chelsea were in America.
The wisdom of the new regime attempting to navigate a first transfer window without adequately replacing any of their know-how and instead attempt to learn on the job can, of course, be questioned. The real scale of Tuchel's frustration was known to those behind the scenes from his obviously agitated mood and demeanour and then became crystal clear publicly after Chelsea were hammered 4-0 by Arsenal in Orlando in July.
The Blues made the decision following their 1-0 defeat to Dinamo Zagreb on Tuesday evening
Tuchel had a pop at his players, painted a gloomy picture of Chelsea’s readiness for the season ahead and highlighted the number of players his London rivals had managed to sign, something that would not have gone unnoticed by the new hierarchy who were handicapped in what they had been able to give him by their delayed arrival following the takeover.
His tetchy post-match press conference and strong words, particularly cutting criticism about his attackers and their lack of threat – ‘it’s the same players [as last season], so why should anything change?- raised eyebrows among his squad and were noted by those above him.
Tuchel also openly questioned the commitment of some of his stars. A number wanted to leave at this stage, a situation that was impacting his mood and that around the camp. Chelsea losing out on players to Barcelona such as Raphinha and later Jules Kounde was a source of annoyance for Tuchel, compounded by two of his squad Cesar Azpilicueta, at the time, and Marcos Alonso wanting to follow Andreas Christensen
