Six days after drawing the curtain on a transfer window in which it spent more money than any Premier League club in history —
lavishing more than $300 million on a swath of new players in just a couple of months — Chelsea has fired its coach, Thomas Tuchel, the man tasked with crafting a team from those disparate, costly parts.
The dismissal of Tuchel, 49, was confirmed in a curt statement released just a matter of hours after the club had lost the first match of its Champions League campaign,
falling, 1-0, against the Croatian champion, Dinamo Zagreb, on Tuesday.
That defeat followed a stuttering start to the domestic season that had seen Chelsea’s expensively assembled team beaten handsomely by Leeds United and Southampton,
as well as being held to a draw by Tottenham Hotspur. The club is currently sixth in the Premier League table, five points adrift of first-place Arsenal.
Tuchel had only been in charge at Stamford Bridge for 18 months, appointed early in 2021 after the club’s former owner, Roman Abramovich, had lost patience with the previous incumbent, Frank Lampard.
Michele also reportedly received “laughter and gasps” from the audience when her character says at one point,
Tuchel’s impact was immediate: Five months later, a team that had been struggling to keep pace in the Premier League was crowned champion of Europe for the second time, ...