New Chelsea owner drops the bomb on Tuchel
Another redundancy at Chelsea as the club relieved German coach Thomas Tuchel of his duties following a Champions League defeat in Zagreb. Over the past weeks, the likes of Marina Granovskaia, Bruce Buck and Petr Cech, all architects, along with the German coach, of the Champions League win in 2021. So, after 16 months after the club’s night of European glory in Porto, Tuchel is out.
The sanction, or rather expropriation, by the British government of Abramovich turned the sale of Chelsea into something of a soap opera as the race to buy the club turned out to be a race of the rich from all corners of the world. In the end, the buyer was Todd Boehly, a successful businessman in North American sport but with a style of working far removed from English traditionalism. Many talk about sheikhs and petrodollars, but these millionaires from the US are also collaborating in the massive commodification of European football.
Chelsea have quite a dilemma on their hands. The club spent 280 million on transfers and have arguably a poorer squad than last year. Major assets of the team such as Rüdiger left on a free transfer and star strikers such as Lukaku or Werner failed to gel at the Stamford Bridge club and made for the exit door. In their place, in come the likes of Aubameyang or Sterling. Questions could also be asked too of the money spent on Cucurella and Fofana.
The task for the next incumbent on the Chelsea bench will be far from easy as tension and instability are palpable at the club and this has not been helped by poor summer planning. To succeed, one needs to do things well, even if you have a lot of money and this applies to live and very much to the world of football.