In February 2022, Chelsea and their fans were on top of the world – quite literally. They had just beaten Brazilian side Palmeiras 2-1 to win the FIFA Club World Cup. The expectations were sky high and Chelsea were due to play Liverpool in EFL cup final a fortnight later. They would eventually reach the quarter finals of the Champions League and the Finals of the FA Cup where they would play Liverpool again. Things couldn’t have been better for the fans and the atmosphere was euphoric. Nothing could possibly go wrong…
Six months later, nothing seems to be going right for the reigning world champions. They ended the 2021/22 season without adding a single trophy to their cabinet. They have lost 2 games in the premier league this season and their Champions League campaign has gotten off to a disastrous start with a 1-0 loss to Dinamo Zagreb. Less than 24 hours later, the club announced they had parted ways with manager Thomas Tuchel. Their defense is leaking goals and they are struggling to score goals. The new ownership under American investor Todd Boehly has inherited a relatively well run club but has made some decisions worthy of Ed Woodward.
Was sacking Tuchel the right decision? Or is it just another one of Chelsea’s knee jerk reactions?
To answer that question, we first need to understand how Chelsea ended up like this. Some say it was because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24th February 2022, an event which forced Russian owner Roman Abramovic to sell the club due to sanctions imposed by the British government. However, in my opinion, it goes back to late December 2021 when their striker and record signing Romelu Lukaku stated in an interview that he wished to return to Inter Milan and blamed Tuchel for his form. While, he later issued an apology and returned to the first team fold, his career never quite recovered from that controversy. He would return to Inter on loan in the summer of 2022 thus cementing himself as one of the worst signings of the Blues in recent years. With Timo Werner also returning to RB Leipzig, Chelsea were left with no recognizable strikers…not that it mattered. Tuchel had been playing midfielder Kai Havertz as striker for the best part of last season. But that interview undermined the manager’s authority and it stuck with Tuchel despite him guiding Chelsea to three finals in the next few months, winning one of them.
The Russo-Ukraine war in late February threw the club into turmoil. Abramovic was under pressure to sell the club which he eventually did on 7 May 2022 for £4.25bn to a consortium led by Todd Boehly. Since then, Chelsea have spent £251.09million in the summer transfer window, acquiring 13 players including Raheem Sterling, Kalidou Koulibaly, Wesley Fofana, and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Apart from Werner and Lukaku, the other outgoings included the likes of Antonio Rudiger, Marcos Alonso, Andreas Christensen, and Ross Barkley. While the transfer of Koulibaly and Sterling made sense, the same can’t be said for the others. Overpaying £75 million for Fofana seems like something Manchester United would do. Aubameyang is a shadow of the striker he was at Arsenal and cannot possibly be expected to solve the issues at Chelsea. To be fair, they haven’t had a good striker since Diego Costa left in 2017.
Expectations have always been sky high at Chelsea since Abramovic bought the club in 2003. Managers have been sacked for perceived underperformance. Who can forget the infamous sacking of Carlo Ancelotti two hours after the end of the 2010/11 season despite finishing second. Then there was Antonio Conte who was sacked despite winning the FA cup in 2018. And now this glorious tradition of sacking managers is carried forward by Todd Boehly…..except this came out of nowhere. Even Chelsea fans have been caught unaware. Tuchel was a popular figure at Stamford Bridge and it was understood that this was a team in transition. Despite a mixed start to the season, they sit 6th on the points table and still in the running for every major trophy. Every single transfer made this season was according to the manager’s preferences. What could possibly have changed in the last week?
While it is easy to speculate, only Todd Boehly will be able to provide us the logic of sacking the manager he had heavily backed without giving him time to turn around fortunes. However, sacking Tuchel is definitely not the right decision as it was obvious he was making the squad punch above their weight at times last season. I’m not sure if this is a knee jerk reaction either as even those decisions have some thought behind them. I would go one step further and say there was no thought involved at all. Most likely, Boehly saw his team lose to Dinamo Zagreb and the legacy of Abramovic possessed him like Annabelle did with that creepy doll. Of course it could have very well been Ed Woodward who laid a curse given the lack of thinking involved….
Whatever the reason, this decision will be judged on the basis of how the next manager performs. Brighton manager Graham Potter is the frontrunner with other candidates including Pochettino and Zinedine Zidane. All of them are capable managers, but it will be tough to replace Tuchel, who had a plan no matter how flawed it was. But for now, fans of other teams in the Premier League will heave a collective sigh of relief – after all Chelsea have just sacked one of the best managers in the world.
