Thomas Tuchel was sacked after Chelsea’s 1-0 defeat to Dinamo Zagreb on Tuesday; Brighton boss Graham Potter will meet Chelsea owner Todd Boehly for talks; Chelsea are prepared to pay the release clause in Potter’s contract
Chelsea have sacked head coach Thomas Tuchel six matches into the Premier League season.
The club have been given permission by Brighton to speak to Graham Potter, who is expected to meet Todd Boehly this afternoon.
It is thought Chelsea have made it clear they are prepared to meet Brighton’s exit clause figure. The club are also keen to speak to Mauricio Pochettino and Zinedine Zidane, who are both out of work.
Boehly axed Tuchel in a face-to-face meeting just three months after completing his takeover of the club. Sky Sports News understands Chelsea have been considering this decision for some time and it is not a knee-jerk reaction to Tuesday’s Champions League defeat to Dinamo Zagreb which co-owners Boehly and Behdad Eghbali both attended.
Tuchel lost his job because of an increasingly difficult relationship with the owners, who were willing to try and make it work with the German but it proved to be not possible. Tuchel also had an increasingly difficult relationship with some players which is not unusual and happens at most clubs.
Boehly is still acting as sporting director having moved on director Marina Granovskaia, chairman Bruce Buck and technical and performance advisor Petr Cech this summer in a complete overhaul of the Roman Abramovich era. Chelsea invested a one-window Premier League record of £273m to revamp Tuchel’s squad this summer, bringing in Wesley Fofana, Kalidou Koulibaly, Marc Cucurella and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
The owners believe they had a very good window and a new manager will bring even more out of the players. They had concerns for some time and have been looking at other options. Now they want a long-term appointment to move Chelsea forward, who is closely aligned with their vision for the club.
Chelsea sit sixth in the Premier League with 10 points following wins over Everton, Leicester and West Ham, a 2-2 draw against Tottenham and defeats at Leeds and Southampton.
A club statement read: “On behalf of everyone at Chelsea FC, the club would like to place on record its gratitude to Thomas and his staff for all their efforts during their time with the club. Thomas will rightly have a place in Chelsea’s history after winning the Champions League, the Super Cup and Club World Cup in his time here.
“As the new ownership group reaches 100 days since taking over the club, and as it continues its hard work to take the club forward, the new owners believe it is the right time to make this transition.
“Chelsea’s coaching staff will take charge of the team for training and the preparation of our upcoming matches as the club moves swiftly to appoint a new head coach.”
Tuchel said he was angry at himself for a ‘huge underperformance’ during the Dinamo Zagreb defeat – his 100th and last game in charge – and suggested his side are currently lacking hunger and determination. In his first 50 matches, Chelsea kept 31 clean sheets, but his second 50 saw them keep just 18.
Sky Sports pundit Jamie Carragher:
“It was a shock, because I thought the new regime at Chelsea would be different to Roman Abramovich and I said a few days ago if Abramovich was still in charge, you would fear for Thomas Tuchel because of what happened in the past with Jose Mourinho, Antonio Conte, Carlo Ancelotti – lots of great managers.
“But I did feel as if it might have been a different type of regime, so it’s a huge shock. It hasn’t been a great start, we get that, but Chelsea just felt like a team who needed the transfer window to end, get the squad that they wanted and then give a top-quality manager a chance, certainly, over the next few weeks or months to put some sort of team together.
“It’s a very ruthless club and I’m not sure [Graham Potter] is the right fit – maybe Chelsea are saying they want to do things differently in the future in terms of having a coach in charge rather than a manager or they do things behind the scenes differently. But if I was Graham Potter, I would find that very hard to believe that they’re going to do things differently. They’ve just got rid of a manager six games into the season.
“It’s a huge step up in his managerial career and Chelsea are still one of the top clubs. They are still world champions right now, but you fear for Graham Potter that he’ll be in the same boat as every other Chelsea manager has for the last 10 years – unless he gets results instantly they’ll be getting themselves another new manager in 12 months.”
Source: Skysports | 7 September 2022