Chelsea left a fair few people surprised yesterday with their sudden dismissal of Thomas Tuchel as manager, but Fabrizio Romano has provided a bit more context behind the German tactician’s exit.
It seems all was not well behind the scenes at Stamford Bridge, with Romano highlighting some issues with transfers – seemingly one of the main areas that Tuchel and new owner Todd Boehly disagreed.
Chelsea had a busy summer, bringing in big names like Raheem Sterling, Wesley Fofana, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Marc Cucurella, and others, but there were some deals that didn’t go through for a variety of reasons.
As revealed in Romano’s column this morning, Tuchel was not keen on signing Cristiano Ronaldo despite Boehly’s interest, while the manager was left frustrated at the club’s struggles to sign Matthijs de Ligt, who ended up moving from Juventus to Bayern Munich instead.
“There were some issues over transfers – for example, Tuchel wanted Matthijs de Ligt as a top priority, but the manager was not so happy that Chelsea lost some time trying to reach an agreement with Juventus, maybe including some players in the deal, and Bayern Munich were able to get in and agree a deal first,” Romano explained.
“Boehly, meanwhile, was not always happy with decisions made by Tuchel either. Cristiano Ronaldo is a player the Chelsea owner wanted, he had some conversations with his agent Jorge Mendes, but Tuchel said no – he wanted a different kind of striker.
“Many things were not perfect between Tuchel and Boehly.”
Tuchel won the Champions League with Chelsea and will surely be fondly remembered by their fans, even if things didn’t end too well for him in west London.
Results and performances so far this season have certainly not been good enough, and it will be interesting to see if Graham Potter can turn things around as he closes in on the job.