I thought this would happen, but I didn’t think it would come this soon. After a dreadful 1-0 loss to Dynamo Zagreb in the Champions League, Thomas Tuchel has been sacked by Chelsea owner Todd Boehly, even though Chelsea have only played seven games this season.
I guess the legacy of Roman Abramovich hasn’t been washed out of Chelsea completely as Todd Boehly has just indulged in the previous owner’s favorite pastime: prematurely sacking managers.
Everyone knew that if Roman Abramovich was still the owner of Chelsea, Thomas Tuchel’s job would have been in real jeopardy. In fact, Abramovich probably would have sacked Tuchel after the Blues’ 2-1 loss to Southhampton a week ago.
Yet, with Boehly, Tuchel’s future was uncertain as we didn’t know what Boehly’s temperament for failure was. Now we do. He’s just as ruthless as his predecessor.
Still, losing against Zagreb in that fashion was bad, but I don’t know if it was a sackable offense. Like I said, Tuchel has only had seven games (6 in the Premier League, 1 in the Champions League) to gel together a squad that has had nearly ten new additions to it.
Plus, the transition from Abramovich to Boehly and all of the chaos and drama that came with must not have been easy on Tuchel or his staff as everyone apart (except for Tuchel) of Chelesea’ hierarchy under Abramovich was fired and replaced only a few months before the season.
That much turnover would affect even the greatest of managers, which is why I feel that Tuchel should have gotten a little more time in the job. He’s proven that he can win with Chelsea as he won the Champions League (2021), the UEFA Super Cup (2021), and the FIFA Club World Cup (2022) all as the Blues manager.
Moreover, he reached the final of the FA Cup twice (2021, 2022), the Carabao Cup once (2022), and finished in the Top-4 every year during his reign.
Surely, a manager with that resume deserved at least until the first international break, which would have given him three games (Fulham, RB Leipzig, Liverpool), to correct Chelsea’s season.
Anyway, now that Tuchel’s gone, the current favorite to take his place is Brighton’s manager, Graham Potter, while former PSG and Tottenham boss, Mauricio Pochettino, is a close second for the job,
In my opinion, both of these managers are a high risk-high reward type of appointment.
Potter has been fantastic for Brighton as he has not only introduced a wonderful, attacking-football style of play to traditional lower-league club, but has also won with it. Yet, he’s never managed at a club of Chelsea’s stature, nor has he managed global superstars either.
He may rise to the occasion and keep Chelsea in the Top-4 race, or he may sink and doom the Blues and their hopes of Champions League football. It’s anyone’s guess at this point.
As for Pochettino, he has managed at the highest level (PSG are one of the biggest clubs in the world) and global superstars (you don’t get any bigger than Leo Messi, Kylian Mbappe, Neymar, and Harry Kane), but he was dreadful at it.
PSG lost the Ligue 1 title race during his first season (which is nearly impossible for the French Giants in that league) and was knocked out of the Champions League early during the year and a half he was at the club. And he won a grand total of 0 titles during his five year stay at Spurs.
There’s a reason why Potter is ahead of Poch in Boehly’s mind, and it’s probably the ones I just listed.
Regardless of whom Boehly chooses to replace Tuchel, they will have an almighty task on their hands. Chelsea is in freefall, and it will take a skilled manager, who is a genius tactician and superb man-motivator, to turn around the Blues season and get them back into the title race.
Images Source: Featured Image: (Wikimedia Creative Commons License/Author: Анна Мейер) (Анна Мейер, CC BY-SA 3.0 GFDL, via Wikimedia Commons)
