Six days after drawing the curtain on the transfer window in which they spent more money than any other Premier League club – spending more than $300m on a handful of new players in just two months – Chelsea have sacked their manager, Thomas Tuchel, the man charged with starting a squad Of those disparate and expensive parts.
Tuchel, 49, has been confirmed sacked on Curt’s statement It was released just hours after the club lost its first Champions League game, losing 1-0 to Croatian champions, Dinamo Zagreb, on Tuesday.
That defeat came after a faltering start to the domestic season, which saw Chelsea’s complex defeat extensively against Leeds United and Southampton, as well as a draw with Tottenham Hotspur. The club is currently ranked sixth in the Premier League table, five points behind the first-placed Arsenal.
Tuchel was only in charge at Stamford Bridge for 18 months, appointed in early 2021 after the club’s former owner, Roman Abramovich, lost patience with his former incumbent, Frank Lampard.
Tuchel’s impact was immediate: Five months later, a team that had been struggling to keep pace with the Premier League was crowned European champions for the second time, Beating Manchester City in the Champions League Final in Porto, Portugal.
However, Tuchel was not able to build on this success. The club failed to meet an ongoing title challenge last season, eventually finishing 19 points behind Manchester City, with the German coach unable to incorporate the club’s record holder, Romelu Lukaku, into his squad. Lukaku, the Belgian striker returning from Inter Milan to London for $111 million, scored just eight goals before being allowed to return to Italy on loan in July.
By that point, Chelsea was under new ownership: Abramovich was forced to sell the club after he and his companies were placed under sanctions following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A consortium led by Todd Boyle, part owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and private equity firm Clearlake. He eventually won the club’s auction.
Although Chelsea were operating at a stunning loss under Abramovich, Bohli and Klerlik co-founder, Baghdad Eghbali, continued to pour money into the club. The wave of transfers they funded this summer brought the likes of Raheem Sterling, Kalidou Koulibaly, Wesley Fofana and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to Stamford Bridge. Buhli himself took a central role in the negotiations, as Tuchel was consulted about the identity of the recruits.
As the summer progressed, Tuchel seemed less satisfied with his luck. He questioned his players’ “level of physical and mental commitment” after their 4-0 pre-season defeat to Arsenal in Orlando, Florida, a theme that continued in the same campaign. After losing to Southampton, he said his team was “not strong enough”.
Meanwhile, in the aftermath of the defeat in Zagreb, his words almost drowned out by the noise of the home side’s fans, he suggested that Chelsea “clearly not where we need to be and where we can be”, before admitting that “everything was missing.” of his team’s performance.
His new owners clearly agreed, his reign barely ending before he had time to clear passport control on his way back to England.
Mauricio Pochettino, former Tottenham and Paris Saint-Germain coach, and the prestigious Graham Potter of Brighton have been identified as the first candidates to replace him.
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