[sovereignstar v2]

So they got Potter, good for them. Hopefully it's good for him. Last summer still seems like a total fuck-up. From an The Athletic article yesterday:

Tuchel ended the journey with no inkling that his 100th match as Chelsea head coach would also be his last. His initial reaction to being summoned to a conference call and relieved of his duties early the next morning was a mixture of shock and disappointment. When those emotions subsided, his abiding impression from the organised nature of the meeting was that this decision had been taken well in advance of the Dinamo defeat.

High-profile free agent Mauricio Pochettino was also contacted, but Potter was the clear first choice. Understanding how Chelsea’s new owners settled on this drastic and ruthless course of action requires a closer look at the sequence of events that led to this point — a remarkable story that includes:

Tuchel delegating some recruitment meetings to his agent owing to tensions with owners
“Slapstick” moments as new owners got used to soccer, including a 4-4-3 formation Chelsea deny happened
Tuchel feeling he wasn’t given the signings he asked for
Too many players left feeling isolated or even ignored, with separate pre-season meetings
Tuchel believing he had verbally agreed a new contract with Chelsea
Tuchel feeling he was close to sack on pre-season over tensions with Behdad Eghbali
Boehly displaying detailed knowledge of Potter’s career in Cucurella meeting
How communication from owners dried up after Leeds defeat

"[Tuchel/I] am very glad I have the staff, not only my staff but also the football staff and we have a certain routine that I can rely on. It is very time-consuming (the recruitment conversations). It’s not my favourite thing to do and in the long run the focus has to be on coaching because it is why I am here. But at the moment, of course, my help is needed and wanted. It is of course necessary that I step up and take the responsibility.”

Boehly’s appointment as interim sporting director made for a slightly awkward dynamic with Tuchel. It is one thing having a difference of opinion with your club’s sporting director over a particular player, but it is very different when the sporting director also happens to be the co-owner of your club.

By the end of pre-season, Tuchel felt the meetings were endless, with different owners demanding his time at breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Tuchel did not in fact, perhaps understandably, always step up himself, instead sending his agent to recruitment meetings so he could focus on coaching the team. This is understood to have been an early source of tension with Chelsea’s new owners, who were seeking more direct communication with and input from their head coach as part of the process of identifying transfer targets.

A source close to Tuchel, who does not wish to be named to protect his job, counters that the former head coach was involved in every signing other than deadline day addition Denis Zakaria. When he did participate, Chelsea sources claimed his guidance was inconsistent.

When Boehly was intrigued by the possibility of signing Cristiano Ronaldo after meeting Jorge Mendes in Portugal, Chelsea’s head coach made his opposition to the potential deal known in no uncertain terms on several occasions. His opinion was informed by the problems he encountered managing Neymar and Kylian Mbappe at Paris Saint-Germain and from his own reservations about the player.

Boehly backed his head coach’s stance and abandoned the possibility, but relations were further strained by Tuchel publicly criticising Chelsea’s lack of transfer progress following a 4-0 pre-season humbling at the hands of Arsenal in Orlando.

Boehly openly described Tuchel as a “nightmare” to deal with on recruitment to a fellow Premier League executive and, in recent weeks, there has been a greater desire within the Chelsea hierarchy to present the nine players purchased for a total outlay in excess of £250million ($287m) this summer as club signings, rather than at the behest of the head coach. That even extends to Aubameyang, whose much-anticipated reunion with the man who unlocked him at Borussia Dortmund lasted a grand total of 59 minutes in Zagreb.

Tuchel argued that the harmony of his squad would be damaged by Ronaldo and helped by Aubameyang. The problem, however, was that any notion of harmony had already been lost.