It’s amateur hour! first bad call STAN Axing of Tuchel is by Boehly COLLYMORE
IN the last few days, Todd Boehly delivered the first amateur moment of his Chelsea reign.
And what the sacking of Thomas Tuchel shows is that Boehly and his co-owners are very much learning about football on their feet.
Would they have discussed binning the German in an audit in recent months?
Yes, of course, they would.
And once they’d done that, they needed either to get behind him, open the cheque book and give him a season to work with those they have brought in come what may.
Or they needed to buy him a striker and maybe a couple of defenders to plug the gaps of those who were leaving in the summer, but largely hold off on the spend.
Instead of making a decision and sticking with it, though, Boehly has found some sort of halfway house.
And not only has that made the events of the past few days look less than professional, they have made the players look like the classic Chelsea dressing room of Didier Drogba, John Terry, Frank Lampard and Petr Cech in terms of player power – but without the ability that lot possessed.
Panicked
I know the decision has been longer in the making than a few days, but it still looks as if Chelsea have panicked after Arsenal’s good start and Manchester United’s upturn in form.
We all know Manchester
City and Liverpool are locked in to the top four, and we can see Tottenham are looking good under Antonio Conte and that Mikel Arteta has started well at the Emirates.
So, at the start of the season it was a case of, ‘Ah, Arsenal and United were miles off us last season, we have a bit of wriggle room for Tuchel and the players’ – and then, all of a sudden, that has dsiappeared and they have had a massive panic.
Now, regular readers will know I’m a huge fan of Graham Potter and I have no doubts whatsoever that he will do the business on the training ground and make each and every player at Chelsea better. I am also delighted to see an Englishman – and especially someone from my neck of the woods – getting a big Premier League job.
But, at Chelsea, you have to have a huge personality and I’m not sure he has that yet, so I’m hoping he doesn’t get swallowed up very quickly.
As for Tuchel, the question is, “What’s next?”. He came into Chelsea, got them to keep clean sheets and quickly took them to the Champions League and Club World Cup titles.
For a while, he was the best thing since sliced bread. But there’s no doubt the Romelu Lukaku situation will have damaged him at Stamford Bridge.
Trophies
It made new owners question why the club had spent just shy of £100million on a player the manager couldn’t then get the best out of.
If you’re acknowledging Tuchel’s trophies, you have to acknowledge that episode as well and also the guy who didn’t do as well as he might have
I wonder if Tuchel’s next destination will be one of the Prem’s B+ clubs, such,as West Ham Newcastle or Aston Villa
done at Paris Saint-germain. He’s obviously somewhere in between either end of that spectrum – and that’s why I don’t see him automatically getting one of the big European jobs anytime soon.
Maybe in Italy, a Juventus or one of the Milan clubs might be looking to make a change during the World Cup and they will be interested.
But he can’t hang around too long for fear of becoming yesterday’s man and I wonder if his most likely destination will be one of our B+ clubs, such as Newcastle, West Ham or Aston Villa. Eddie Howe, David Moyes and Steven Gerrard could well be the ones looking over their shoulders and their clubs could afford to pay Tuchel £8m-£10m a year.
Boxes
The fact they could all offer a longterm project as well might tick boxes for him because the pressure wouldn’t be what it has been at Chelsea.
Time will tell, but don’t be surprised if we see him again sometime soon.