Graeme Souness: Todd Boehly ‘will rue the day’ he sacked Thomas Tuchel as Chelsea manager
Graeme Souness believes Chelsea co-owner Todd Boehly will rue the day he sacked Thomas Tuchel.
He’s since been replaced by Graham Potter, who concluded a successful period at Brighton & Hove Albion with 5-2 win over Leicester City, with the American businessman citing a lack of collaborative feeling as the reason behind the parting of the ways.
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“When you take over any business, You have to make sure you are aligned with the people in the business, and Tuchel is obviously extremely talented and obviously someone who had great success with Chelsea,” Boehly said at the SALT Conference in the United States.
“Our vision for the club was to find a manager who really wanted to collaborate with us, a coach who really wanted to collaborate. There are a lot of walls to break down at Chelsea. Before, the first team and academy didn’t really share data, didn’t share information about where the top players were coming from. Our goal is to bring a team together; all of that needs to be a well-oiled machine.
“The reality of our decision was that we weren’t sure that Thomas saw it the same way we saw it. No one is right or wrong, we just didn’t have a shared vision for the future. It wasn’t about Zagreb, it was about the shared vision for what we wanted Chelsea to look like.
“It wasn’t a decision that was made because of a single win or loss. It was a decision that we thought was the right vision for the club.”
Souness feels pushing Tuchel out the door is a decision that could haunt Boehly and company.
“I think they got rid of the wrong man,” he said on Talksport. “I would have kept him [Tuchel].
“I don’t believe the stories coming out of Chelsea are anywhere near the real picture. I think the PR people at Chelsea have done a number on Tuchel to paint the new owners in a good light.
“I don’t feel sorry for Tuchel because at the end of the day he’s a big boy and you take a big job at a football club you know the pressure’s on from day one.
“But I think they will rue that [decision]. Boehly knows all about soccer… he’s been here two minutes and he knows all about soccer. He’s been making football decisions which, no, not for me. I think he will rue the day [he sacked Tuchel].”
