Tommy Martin: Hire ‘em, wire ‘em and fire ‘em has served Chelsea well
CHOPPED: Former Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel. Photo: Steven Paston/PA Wire.
And so ends the Thomas Tuchel era, a long and glorious reign that stretches back into the mists of time, at least by Chelsea’s standards.
Tuchel lasted 589 days as football’s version of the drummer in Spinal Tap. In terms of longevity, that beats Messrs Lampard, Sarri, Benitez, Di Matteo, Villas-Boas, Scolari, Grant and both Hiddink interregnums. It is well known that the tenure of Chelsea managers is measured in dog years, so we should think of Tuchel as lovable Old Shep, gone to live on the farm.
When new owner Todd Boehly was manoeuvring to take over the club earlier this year, it was said that he believed "his group can offer Chelsea immediate stability and certainty." True to his word, just months later we have the reassuringly familiar sight of managerial blood on the Stamford Bridge floors.
At Chelsea, nothing suggests a steady hand on the tiller like the other hand being used to pull a trigger. After the tumultuous end of the Roman Abramovich era, the new ownership has signalled calm and continuity through the comforting swish of the guillotine’s blade.
It was as if Boehly walked into the offices vacated by the departed club hierarchy with a ring-bound folder entitled ‘Roman Abramovich’s Guide to Managerial Husbandry’. And why not? In almost two decades of ownership, the Russian billionaire brought unprecedented success by recruiting big name managers then sacking them soon after, easing both ends of the process with the transfer of massive amounts of soothing cash. Hire ‘Em, Wire ‘Em and Fire ‘Em – it has served Chelsea well.
Some thought that a hedge fund bro buying the club and appointing himself sporting director would bring upheaval to Chelsea after years of being run by sundry Abramovich underlings. It would be like Happy Gilmore taking charge of the KGB. All that cool, Slavonic calculation being replaced by the gaucheness of a Yank in a baseball cap. And at times this summer Boehly foundered in the transfer market: going after the wrong guys, overpaying for the right guys, every inch that familiar Hollywood trope, the fish out of water.
But now he has found his feet. And what sound could signal the resumption of normal service at Chelsea more than the grumbling of an unhappy dressing room, the traditional chimes of doom for any Blues boss? Since the days of Terry, Drogba and Lampard, when Abramovich granted his title-winning stars liberal access to his super-yacht, through the ‘rats’ era of Hazard and Fabregas and beyond, the mood of powerful figures in the Chelsea squad has unduly influenced the fate of the man supposed to be their boss.
And so it was upon Tuchel’s demise that reports emerged of senior players unhappy with his tactics and relationships with several stars having deteriorated. As the team endured a sticky start to the season, long-serving Chelsea players no doubt passed on to younger team-mates the key dressing room values that sustain the club when times are tough: we knuckle down, roll up our sleeves and get bitching to the owner.
Tuchel had probably spotted that many of his players had downed tools in recent weeks. After the recent defeat to Southampton he criticised his team for being “soft” and “not tough enough.” When you are being found wanting for battling qualities in the mean streets of Southampton then you know you are in trouble. By Tuesday’s defeat to Dinamo Zagreb the manager was clearly going through the motions. Raheem Sterling in midfield? Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang for a debut a few days after getting his jaw broken in a robbery? Hakim Ziyech, fancy a spell in goal?
At any other club, a Champions League winning manager might be considered a prime asset. At Chelsea, the most famous cup in club football is a poisoned chalice. Tuchel might have thought that glorious night in Porto would have earned him a little wriggle room as the club eased itself through a period of incredible off-field turbulence. He had, after all, led with calm and dignity through the madness of those months following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the defenestration of Abramovich for being an alleged Putin crony.
With the club’s very future in doubt, Tuchel guided Chelsea to third place in the Premier League and the finals of the FA Cup and Carabao Cup, both of which were lost on penalties to Liverpool. His team were within 10 minutes of another Champions League semi-final too, before Real Madrid did their Real thing. A title bid faltered due to the failure to harness the talents of Romelu Lukaku and concurrent injuries to first-choice wing-backs Reese James and Ben Chilwell, for Tuchel’s style of play the equivalent of a violinist losing his bow. But not a bad innings, considering.
Reports suggest that the departure of Marina Granovskaia as director and Petr Cech as technical and performance adviser left Tuchel dealing too much in the machinations of transfer policy, which he is said not to enjoy. Intense and, as Antonio Conte will tell you, capable of eye-bulging loopiness, Tuchel clearly needs careful executive handling. Boehly, it seems, was keen to foist Cristiano Ronaldo on him, which Tuchel resisted on pain of death. This was clearly no meeting of minds.
At the time of writing Chelsea appear well down the road in their pursuit of Graham Potter as Tuchel’s replacement. Potter’s work at Brighton has marked him out for some time as the most eligible prospect upon the next vacancy in a big club manager’s office. Those come around at Chelsea more often than most, a fact which Potter, or whoever takes the gig this time, will be well aware of in advance.
