THE new Chelsea manager must accept his brief, starring role in the surreal mash-up that is Ted Lasso meets Welcome to Wrexham with the familiar ending of The Apprentice.
New Chelsea manager, you will be fired. Sooner rather than later, obviously, with an obscene payoff serving as an emollient after one’s head is removed.
Stamford Bridge is a unique institute for the sportingly insane, swallowing confident individuals and spitting out shrunken, hollow-eyed shells, muttering something about a lack of control in the transfer market and still insisting that Antonio Conte deserved a smack.
In just 595 days, Thomas Tuchel went from being the most highly prized coach of his generation, moved onto being named Uefa Men’s Coach of the Year and Fifa’s Best Coach of the year, before ending as a gibbering, nervous wreck, showing off his pale, wobbly biceps and changing formation three times in one Champions League match.
When the inevitable denouement came, in a 1-0 defeat at Dinamo Zagreb, Tuchel was reduced to that blubbering, over-promoted lieutenant in Band of Brothers, weeping in the field as his troops are cut down because of his indecision.
Well done, Chelsea. You did it again. You dismantled another young manager, like a coach whisperer breaking in, or breaking down, another feisty pup until it submits in a quiet corner of the dugout. In no time at all, the familiar savagery is back at Stamford Bridge.
For a while there, we were worried that the Blues might have moved on from their cartoonish villainy, swapping a Putin-supporting oligarch for a more acceptable face of grotesque capitalism in the shape of warm and smiley American Todd Boehly.
It’s not a bad time to be an American owner of a British club, as long as the name isn’t Glazer. Ted Lasso’s folksy, homespun wisdom has crossed the pond to unite soccer and football, and Ryan Reynolds’ and Rob McElhenney’s endearing documentary, chronicling their purchase of Wrexham, makes Tom Hicks and George Gillett feel like a different, uglier era of ignorant US expansionism.
