Daily Mail Journalist, Ian Ladyman has revealed that the struggles that Chelsea have faced in the last two seasons were foretold by their ex-manager, Thomas Tuchel.
Tuchel was fired as Chelsea boss in September 2022, but before his exit, the now Bayern Munich manager sent a warning to the owners of the club over the fact that some very important players at Stamford Bridge were reaching the end of their contracts without any sort of intervention from the ownership. This included names like Antonio Rudiger and Andreas Christensen, who left to join Real Madrid and Barcelona respectively, after their contracts eventually elapsed at the end of that season.
During a recent episode of the It’s All Kicking Off podcast, Ladyman recalled a conversation he had with Tuchel after his side were defeated by Liverpool in the FA Cup final of that season, and how everything the German said in the interview has now come to pass.
He said: “I have noticed Thomas Tuchel in the last couple of days, a manager I have huge regard for, has started to make a couple of comments suggesting he may not be totally happy over there. If I was Jim Ratcliffe, the new part owner at Old Trafford, I would be all over that like a cheap suit.
“When his Chelsea team lost the FA Cup final. I stood in the corridor with other journalists talking to him and he warned Chelsea about what was coming because he had a lot of players out of contract. He warned Chelsea that the turnaround or the churn in that squad in that summer was going to be too much and it was too much. He was right and he was out the door by that September.”
After Tuchel’s sack by Boehly in 2022, his successor, Graham Potter couldn’t last a whole season, before he too was sacked, and replaced by Frank Lampard on a caretaker basis. The Blues then finished the 2022-23 season in 12th place, missing out on Champions League football. This season has been better in some ways, but there’s no denying that Chelsea are still miles off what they used to be.