The Tuchel Thread

[cosmicway 1,323]

For hellenist scholars:

[Blue Armour 4,278]

1 minute ago, turgi said:

 

Funny, I didn't say one word about the owner, or mentioned him by name but yet you both jumped to silly conclusions.

If anything, I mentioned that I'd like to a football executive at the top of the pyramid.

Maybe you should read more carefully before you reply.

 

Tit for tat. I'm not accusing you specifically anywhere in my post., so I'm not sure why you got offended. If my post seemed otherwise to you, I apologize.

You said you were surprised about people clamoring for Tuchel., I just flipped that argument and said that I'm surprised about how Boehly gets leeway, instead.

There's an obvious connection there.  But I guess it's not that obvious to some.

 

[turgi 71]

2 minutes ago, Blue Armour said:

Tit for tat. I'm not accusing you specifically anywhere in my post., so I'm not sure why you got offended. If my post seemed otherwise to you, I apologize.

You said you were surprised about people clamoring for Tuchel., I just flipped that argument and said that I'm surprised about how Boehly gets leeway, instead.

There's an obvious connection there.  But I guess it's not that obvious to some.

 

I generally said I am surprised, you quoted me.

I didn't go over all comments so I may be missing something. I think you are wrong, people aren't happy about the sacking because of credit for the owner (or because the owner 'bought' them with his money as if he transferred some of the transfer money to supporters.) If anything, most summer here the club is being criticised for it's transfer policy.

I said I am surprised about Tuchel and I explained why. This team is in shambles (blame here is on the owner as well).

[Blue Armour 4,278]

4 minutes ago, turgi said:

I think you are wrong, people aren't happy about the sacking because of credit for the owner (or because the owner 'bought' them with his money as if he transferred some of the transfer money to supporters.) If anything, most summer here the club is being criticised for it's transfer policy.

 

Ultimately Tuchel's sacking lies at the feet of the owner. And that's where my argument stems from.

Boehly got a lot of leeway this transfer window (rightfully so), because he still hasn't had time to establish a structure. That's why even his seemingly scattergun approach to transfers is forgivable (even if questionable), and he has got a lot of slack from fans.

His decision making until this point at least seemed have reasoning behind it, and that's why any questions have been largely brushed aside.

That said, I'm seeing a similar level of trust in Boehly even with regards to this decision as well. A decision that seems to have been premeditated upon a long time ago.

For me, this decision is questionable. Who knows. Maybe it works out. For the club at least, I hope so.

[Vesper 28,796]

Boehly and Clearlake promised change at Chelsea – Tuchel’s sacking shows they are just as ruthless

https://theathletic.com/3572525/2022/09/07/Chelsea-boehly-tuchel-firing/

Chelsea were supposed to have changed.

The ruthlessness that typified the Roman Abramovich regime, when a stodgy stretch of results would render even the most decorated of head coaches a dead man walking, was meant to be a thing of the past. The club had moved on under new ownership and, the bold suggestion went, would be doing things differently now.

The onus was on building a new era of success at Stamford Bridge after the £2.5billion ($2.86bn) change of hands this summer and, to give them the best possible chance of achieving that lofty ambition, they would lean on one of the few world-class assets they had inherited: a Champions League-winning head coach. A figure whose pedigree was established and who had steered the club and team through the tumult of last season with dignity and no little class. A coach who gave them an edge.

Instead, just over three months after the completion of a horribly complicated takeover forced through in unique and distinctly fraught political conditions, we find ourselves here again.

Thomas Tuchel has been sacked, cast aside after six largely spluttering displays in the Premier League and an anaemic defeat last night in the opening Champions League group fixture.

Chelsea have appeared listless on the pitch, under-performing far too often, with the figure who should have been inspiring them left looking helpless, even haunted, on the sidelines. A pale shadow of his former self.

We are back in familiar territory, with members of the Chelsea hierarchy wearing those grim expressions and dismal tidings to deliver to the man in charge of the team.

The club’s new owners have reacted to a perceived drop in standards, just as their predecessor always did.

Tuchel’s 19-month tenure amounted to a century of games in all competitions, one glorious night in Porto, Club World Cup and UEFA Super Cup victories to keep the trophy cabinet well stocked, and three near-misses in the two domestic cups.

He steered Chelsea to finishing fourth in the 2020-21 Premier League, hoisting the side out of the mid-season slump endured under predecessor Frank Lampard. They were third last time, 19 points off the champions for a second year running and with too much of the football disappointingly turgid even if, in tricky circumstances, securing a top-three position and reaching both domestic cup finals was largely to be applauded.

Abramovich may have been distant, an owner only ever encountered on foreign fields amid ticker-taped success, but Tuchel enjoyed working with Marina Granovskaia and Petr Cech.

Then came the change in ownership, a new dawn and, for Tuchel, the beginning of the end.

“I didn’t see it coming,” the German had offered through a deflated monotone in his post-match media conference at the Maksimir Stadium on Tuesday night, an admission he would parrot over the course of his briefing. “Obviously I was in the wrong movie. I did not see that coming… That’s why I’m angry with myself. I did not see that coming.”

He was referring to his team’s slack performance in losing 1-0 to Dinamo Zagreb. As it turned out, doubts had apparently been growing over the certainty of his position among the co-controlling owners, Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital, well ahead of the trip to Croatia.

Relations had been strained over the last few weeks. Tuchel was on borrowed time regardless of his side’s first Champions League result. The defeat in Zagreb may have come as a shock but, in reality, the now ex-head coach did not know the half of it.

It has not taken long for matters to veer off-piste for Chelsea’s brave new world.

Back at the start of the summer, there were real hopes within the new ownership group that Tuchel would provide the much-needed stability and continuity as the club ventured into uncharted territory.

Boehly and his fellow co-controlling owners knew they were learning their roles on the hoof. They wanted to lean on the head coach’s knowledge and experience and did not envisage maintaining the (financially) costly hire-and-fire culture for which Chelsea had become renowned back when compensation payouts stacked up higher than silverware.

Dave Roberts, manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team in which Boehly owns a stake via Guggenheim Baseball Management, has been in charge since 2016 and recently signed a three-year contract extension that will keep him in place to 2025. A different sport, admittedly, but Roberts has retained the owner’s faith through good and bad times. At Chelsea there was, and still is, that same desire for longevity.

Yet the ownership and management at Stamford Bridge did not know whether they could work together. These were characters flung together abruptly by circumstance — a relatively rapid sale of an elite club forced to compete for three months under sanctions related to Russian businessman Abramovich and his homeland’s invasion of Ukraine. They were figures balancing long-term and immediate needs while playing catch-up in the summer transfer market, watching the few clubs above them in last season’s final table strengthen and those at their shoulder potentially progressing apace.

Boehly-Clearlake, having understandably chosen to dispense with the chairman Bruce Buck and Granovskaia, and with Cech opting to leave, undertook a crash course in football club ownership with no experienced sporting director in place to guide strategy.

They asked a head coach, a man who would have been affected by the upheaval since March and was also enduring difficulties in his private life, to offer input in areas he might normally have preferred others to supervise. This was something Tuchel admitted was “not my favourite thing to do” even if he reluctantly accepted he had to embrace a responsibility never granted to any of his recent Chelsea predecessors.

Now the club find themselves in the vaguely ludicrous situation of feeling compelled to make a change in the dugout while some of the players Tuchel had championed as signings, personnel conditioned with his tactical approach in mind amid a £250million summer spend, are still bedding into their new surroundings.

Tuchel had made clear his desire to work with Raheem Sterling, “our No 1 priority in the market” and a player he was convinced would spice up a misfiring forward line.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who had thrived under the German at Borussia Dortmund from 2015-17 and was eager to renew acquaintances, has barely unpacked since arriving from Barcelona last week. What must he be feeling to find the familiar face apparently instrumental in luring him back to London sacked within days of the closure of the transfer window?

It will be up to a new head coach to ensure they do not remain unsettled for long.

Ultimately, Chelsea’s new owners have quickly discovered what Abramovich had long since learned: as soon as the relationship between head coach and hierarchy is perceived to have broken down, there is no recovery.

Tuchel is a coach whose lofty reputation is justified, but his mood had turned sour. The sparkle and energy that had typified his first 10 months in charge had rather dimmed. He appeared unsettled, distant, on edge.

The new board could point to performances dipping too regularly this calendar year, albeit with mitigating circumstances given what was happening off-field, as a worrying trend. They spied strain between the coach and some of his players. More significant were their concerns over whether they could work with Tuchel towards longer-term goals and successes.

Abramovich did occasionally let things linger. Claudio Ranieri, Carlo Ancelotti, Antonio Conte, Maurizio Sarri and even Avram Grant all saw out campaigns fearing the inevitably of their lot before change was eventually instigated. Jose Mourinho may have left, first time round, in September 2007 but the first cracks in that schism had taken hold over the preceding 18 months at least.

The Russian oligarch was always more decisive when he feared top-four status, and the Champions League qualification that came with it, was threatened — as Luiz Felipe Scolari, Andre Villas-Boas, Roberto Di Matteo, Mourinho (second time around) and Lampard discovered to their cost.

That strategy, while expensive, helped maintain Chelsea’s status at the top table of European football.

Although it is too early to know whether their current team’s position in the pecking order is seriously threatened, the signs in these first weeks of the new season were not promising. “At the moment, everything is missing,” Tuchel had admitted in Croatia, hours before the axe fell.

It did not bode well that the unity between ownership and management had become so fractured. Boehly-Clearlake may not have wanted to follow suit, to mimic what others always decried as Abramovich’s lack of patience but, after 100 days in charge, reality bit early.

The new Chelsea, whether reluctantly or not, are as ruthless as ever.

[cosmicway 1,323]

It's not so ruthless for Tuchel as it says above.
Everybody respects him despite the recent setbacks.
It might have been more ruthless for him if he stayed and the team continued on the disastrous path.
But I find it difficult to consider it his fault.

[YorkshireBlue 3,122]

3 hours ago, Hermione said:

It's scary how Boehly managed to brainwash a lot of the posters here based of the money spent this summer. I mean most of us hope he will keep us at the top and is a good owner but a lot of the people here refuse to see the red flags around Todd and defend him at all costs even changing goalposts.

 

But on the flip side to this, it's crazy how many ppl are on Todd's back already, yes he spent alot of money, but a select few seem to have that, " I didn't get what I wanted for Christmas" attitude and have wrote him off already.

[YorkshireBlue 3,122]

1 hour ago, Vesper said:

Boehly and Clearlake promised change at Chelsea – Tuchel’s sacking shows they are just as ruthless

https://theathletic.com/3572525/2022/09/07/Chelsea-boehly-tuchel-firing/

Chelsea were supposed to have changed.

The ruthlessness that typified the Roman Abramovich regime, when a stodgy stretch of results would render even the most decorated of head coaches a dead man walking, was meant to be a thing of the past. The club had moved on under new ownership and, the bold suggestion went, would be doing things differently now.

The onus was on building a new era of success at Stamford Bridge after the £2.5billion ($2.86bn) change of hands this summer and, to give them the best possible chance of achieving that lofty ambition, they would lean on one of the few world-class assets they had inherited: a Champions League-winning head coach. A figure whose pedigree was established and who had steered the club and team through the tumult of last season with dignity and no little class. A coach who gave them an edge.

Instead, just over three months after the completion of a horribly complicated takeover forced through in unique and distinctly fraught political conditions, we find ourselves here again.

Thomas Tuchel has been sacked, cast aside after six largely spluttering displays in the Premier League and an anaemic defeat last night in the opening Champions League group fixture.

Chelsea have appeared listless on the pitch, under-performing far too often, with the figure who should have been inspiring them left looking helpless, even haunted, on the sidelines. A pale shadow of his former self.

We are back in familiar territory, with members of the Chelsea hierarchy wearing those grim expressions and dismal tidings to deliver to the man in charge of the team.

The club’s new owners have reacted to a perceived drop in standards, just as their predecessor always did.

Tuchel’s 19-month tenure amounted to a century of games in all competitions, one glorious night in Porto, Club World Cup and UEFA Super Cup victories to keep the trophy cabinet well stocked, and three near-misses in the two domestic cups.

He steered Chelsea to finishing fourth in the 2020-21 Premier League, hoisting the side out of the mid-season slump endured under predecessor Frank Lampard. They were third last time, 19 points off the champions for a second year running and with too much of the football disappointingly turgid even if, in tricky circumstances, securing a top-three position and reaching both domestic cup finals was largely to be applauded.

Abramovich may have been distant, an owner only ever encountered on foreign fields amid ticker-taped success, but Tuchel enjoyed working with Marina Granovskaia and Petr Cech.

Then came the change in ownership, a new dawn and, for Tuchel, the beginning of the end.

“I didn’t see it coming,” the German had offered through a deflated monotone in his post-match media conference at the Maksimir Stadium on Tuesday night, an admission he would parrot over the course of his briefing. “Obviously I was in the wrong movie. I did not see that coming… That’s why I’m angry with myself. I did not see that coming.”

He was referring to his team’s slack performance in losing 1-0 to Dinamo Zagreb. As it turned out, doubts had apparently been growing over the certainty of his position among the co-controlling owners, Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital, well ahead of the trip to Croatia.

Relations had been strained over the last few weeks. Tuchel was on borrowed time regardless of his side’s first Champions League result. The defeat in Zagreb may have come as a shock but, in reality, the now ex-head coach did not know the half of it.

It has not taken long for matters to veer off-piste for Chelsea’s brave new world.

Back at the start of the summer, there were real hopes within the new ownership group that Tuchel would provide the much-needed stability and continuity as the club ventured into uncharted territory.

Boehly and his fellow co-controlling owners knew they were learning their roles on the hoof. They wanted to lean on the head coach’s knowledge and experience and did not envisage maintaining the (financially) costly hire-and-fire culture for which Chelsea had become renowned back when compensation payouts stacked up higher than silverware.

Dave Roberts, manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team in which Boehly owns a stake via Guggenheim Baseball Management, has been in charge since 2016 and recently signed a three-year contract extension that will keep him in place to 2025. A different sport, admittedly, but Roberts has retained the owner’s faith through good and bad times. At Chelsea there was, and still is, that same desire for longevity.

Yet the ownership and management at Stamford Bridge did not know whether they could work together. These were characters flung together abruptly by circumstance — a relatively rapid sale of an elite club forced to compete for three months under sanctions related to Russian businessman Abramovich and his homeland’s invasion of Ukraine. They were figures balancing long-term and immediate needs while playing catch-up in the summer transfer market, watching the few clubs above them in last season’s final table strengthen and those at their shoulder potentially progressing apace.

Boehly-Clearlake, having understandably chosen to dispense with the chairman Bruce Buck and Granovskaia, and with Cech opting to leave, undertook a crash course in football club ownership with no experienced sporting director in place to guide strategy.

They asked a head coach, a man who would have been affected by the upheaval since March and was also enduring difficulties in his private life, to offer input in areas he might normally have preferred others to supervise. This was something Tuchel admitted was “not my favourite thing to do” even if he reluctantly accepted he had to embrace a responsibility never granted to any of his recent Chelsea predecessors.

Now the club find themselves in the vaguely ludicrous situation of feeling compelled to make a change in the dugout while some of the players Tuchel had championed as signings, personnel conditioned with his tactical approach in mind amid a £250million summer spend, are still bedding into their new surroundings.

Tuchel had made clear his desire to work with Raheem Sterling, “our No 1 priority in the market” and a player he was convinced would spice up a misfiring forward line.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who had thrived under the German at Borussia Dortmund from 2015-17 and was eager to renew acquaintances, has barely unpacked since arriving from Barcelona last week. What must he be feeling to find the familiar face apparently instrumental in luring him back to London sacked within days of the closure of the transfer window?

It will be up to a new head coach to ensure they do not remain unsettled for long.

Ultimately, Chelsea’s new owners have quickly discovered what Abramovich had long since learned: as soon as the relationship between head coach and hierarchy is perceived to have broken down, there is no recovery.

Tuchel is a coach whose lofty reputation is justified, but his mood had turned sour. The sparkle and energy that had typified his first 10 months in charge had rather dimmed. He appeared unsettled, distant, on edge.

The new board could point to performances dipping too regularly this calendar year, albeit with mitigating circumstances given what was happening off-field, as a worrying trend. They spied strain between the coach and some of his players. More significant were their concerns over whether they could work with Tuchel towards longer-term goals and successes.

Abramovich did occasionally let things linger. Claudio Ranieri, Carlo Ancelotti, Antonio Conte, Maurizio Sarri and even Avram Grant all saw out campaigns fearing the inevitably of their lot before change was eventually instigated. Jose Mourinho may have left, first time round, in September 2007 but the first cracks in that schism had taken hold over the preceding 18 months at least.

The Russian oligarch was always more decisive when he feared top-four status, and the Champions League qualification that came with it, was threatened — as Luiz Felipe Scolari, Andre Villas-Boas, Roberto Di Matteo, Mourinho (second time around) and Lampard discovered to their cost.

That strategy, while expensive, helped maintain Chelsea’s status at the top table of European football.

Although it is too early to know whether their current team’s position in the pecking order is seriously threatened, the signs in these first weeks of the new season were not promising. “At the moment, everything is missing,” Tuchel had admitted in Croatia, hours before the axe fell.

It did not bode well that the unity between ownership and management had become so fractured. Boehly-Clearlake may not have wanted to follow suit, to mimic what others always decried as Abramovich’s lack of patience but, after 100 days in charge, reality bit early.

The new Chelsea, whether reluctantly or not, are as ruthless as ever.

Such lazy journalism from the writer of this article.

[Blue Armour 4,278]

I will admit though, while the sacking of Tuchel is questionable, the fact that Boehly is approaching Potter first, instead of more 'obvious' options, indicates that he is very observant of the game and not a complete novice like the pundits make him out to be. Either him or whoever is advising him.

[lucio 5,418]

14 hours ago, Clockwork said:

I thought you would be happy that Tuchel is gone?

 

 

He should have stayed until the club could secure a world class replacement , which would have given him time to turn it around.

settling for some mid table donkey like potter who plays a shitty back 3 is unforgivable 

[Blue Armour 4,278]

Hope Potter, if he joins, doesn't turn into another Ragnick or AVB type appointment.

Coaches with good reputations as tacticians, but with no experience managing big players.

[YorkshireBlue 3,122]

32 minutes ago, lucio said:

He should have stayed until the club could secure a world class replacement , which would have given him time to turn it around.

settling for some mid table donkey like potter who plays a shitty back 3 is unforgivable 

The only managers from the PL id have over potter is pep and klopp.

[cosmicway 1,323]

I have pinpointed the weakness.
It's slow motion football and it's not the fault of Ziyech or Sterling as such when they find space to take a shot once in a blue moon.
We had this problem under Mou even in the championship season 2014-15. Also during Conte's second season and lately under Lampard-Tuchel.
Eden Hazard's departure made things more difficult.
I don't know if a new manager will solve it in the coming weeks or months.

Edited September 8, 2022 by cosmicway

[Blues Forever 1,232]

 

[Blues Forever 1,232]

 

[robsblubot 3,504]

Ruthlessness is when we want to make harsh stupid decisions sound cool and edgy.

Still makes no sense to upend work over and over again… sorry if you don’t see that then you don’t really know how “football” is made.

the most successful clubs in the world simply do not roll that way. And that’s for a very good reason.

[Artandur 939]

We've basically been on a nearly constant downhill slope for more than a season now, with barely any signs of progress. To be honest we've probably been playing our worst football we've played under TT these last few games. Obviously its always a gamble to sack a generally beloved manager, who achieved sth with the club, and we'll just have to wait and see how it turns out. But calling the decision rash or unwarranted i can't subscribe to, considering the trend we're on and the time we've been on it already.

Edited September 8, 2022 by Artandur

[Special Juan 27,424]

Potter off to Brighton training this morning to say goodbye to the players and staff, sounds like it's all done.