Tactics and transfers: The Chelsea way
Todd Boehly’s firing of Thomas Tuchel was perhaps the most Blackadder-esque and typically Chelsea moves in pursuit of an ironically atypical Blues goal ever.
Win now at all costs? Old and busted. Long-term sustainable planning for a successful and victory-laden future? New hotness.
Firstly readers sorry for the break between posts. The tax rules around internet work in the country of my current residence are rather complicated if I go above a certain threshold so I have to be more sparring than the previous column rules of 52 weeks and 52 posts. Don’t worry, like I always say to my girlfriend when I even go to the bathroom at a restaurant, “Oh my god, yes, I miss you too”. In this case, I even actually mean it.
One does have to wonder how people feel about Chels’ replacing Tuchel with Potter now. On the back of five wins with a much-improved style of football it’s an interesting conversation to have.
If the west London club firing Tuchel surprised you then I should say “welcome to Chelsea Football Club, that’s what we do here”. Ken Bates fired managers like he was some sort of penny-pinching prelude to Roman Abramovich who set a new record. The truth is that CFC owners tend to have very distinct opinion of how the club they own should be run. Sheepish men seldom have ever been in the chief board seat in SW6. That’s a simple truth.
There were some weird stories that came out about Tuchel’s departure; the most peculiar was the one that Tuchel didn’t want to be involved in transfer activities. A story that I don’t think any football fan has ever heard before. Usually, managers are upset at not having more say. In this case Tommy “The Technician” Tuchel just wanted to work on the car without any interest in the pieces that he could potentially import.
Whether or not he was that pleasant about the occasional early morning or late evening call or text is more hearsay than anything. It’s pretty understandable though that if you had just purchased a club for £3.2billion and then been awkwardly forced by the government to promise £1.5b worth of investment over a 15-year period (as strange a set of rules as we’ll ever hear and a story far less discussed than necessary) you’d probably be a little annoyed if one of the employees gave you attitude for needing their help.