Thomas Tuchel is no longer the Chelsea manager, and the German was left devastated with the decision.
After returning to the club's Cobham training base from their Champions League defeat at Dinamo Zagreb, Tuchel was reportedly preparing to call a team meeting to go through just what went wrong in the 1-0 defeat to the Croatian minnows.
Instead, the 2021 Champions League winner was hauled into a conference call with owner Todd Boehly and dismissed after a 10 minute chat, despite his protestations.
The brutal nature of the dismissal has got us thinking about some similarly swift and unseen sackings.
We've taken a look at some decisions managers simply weren't expecting or wanting.
Louis van Gaal - Manchester United, 2016
"You could see he was upset. I actually went and pulled him for a chat in the party we had afterwards. He was in the corner with his wife and he was really quiet."
Wayne Rooney noticed it, and the press did too.
In the immediate aftermath of guiding Manchester United to the FA Cup in 2016, their first trophy since the departure of Sir Alex Ferguson three years earlier, Louis van Gaal was being questioned by press on his future at the club as Jose Mourinho waited in the wings.
The experienced Dutchman didn't want to go, but the decision had already been made.
Forty-eight hours after Jesse Lingard's extra-time winner edged out Crystal Palace at Wembley, Van Gaal was gone.
“I was wholly convinced that I’d be able to see out my contract and have a third season at United," said Van Gaal in 2020.
"And it was the biggest surprise of my life when [Ed] Woodward sacked me.
“I had faced resistance internally at other clubs and federations before. But that was nothing compared to what I had to put up with at Man Utd."
Jupp Heynckes and Vicente Del Bosque - Real Madrid, 1998 and 2003
Ah Real Madrid. Where brutal knows no bounds.
Two managers who have felt the wrath of Los Blancos before are Jupp Heynckes and Vicente Del Bosque, who were sacked within days of achieving successes most bosses can merely dream of.
German Heynckes was dismissed in May 1998, eight days after beating Juventus 1-0 in Amsterdam to end the club's 32 year European Cup/ Champions League drought.
"If we had not won the European Cup, this would have been one of the worst seasons in recent years, said president Lorenzo Sanz, with Real finishing fourth in La Liga.
Five years later, and Vicente Del Bosque had ensured a La Liga triumph as he guided Real to his second league title during a four year spell that included two Champions Leagues.
He was sacked 48 hours later.
"They wanted to sack Del Bosque and we wanted him to stay, so we didn't want to celebrate the La Liga title," said former Real defender Ivan Helguera in an Instagram interview in 2020.
"A lot of the players had made the decision not to go to the title celebration, but at the last minute they backed off.
"We had to go to the Town Hall and many players didn't want to be there if they sacked Del Bosque, so it was difficult to enjoy dinner."
The club had made their move though. "Real Madrid needs someone with a less out-of-date training manual," said Florentino Perez, Sanz's replacement.
He and Madrid wouldn't taste Champions League glory again for 12 years.
Roy Evans - Liverpool, 1998
Looking back, Liverpool were just trying to be nice.
The Reds knew that they had to modernise to keep up with clubs like the perennially evolving Manchester United and Arsene Wenger's Arsenal, so they made a move for Wenger's good friend and French technician Gerard Houllier in the summer of 1998.
But they didn't want to sack faithful club servant Evans.
Part of the club's famed 'boot room' culture under Bill Shankly, Evans was a popular manager whose teams were often accused of being brittle but played fantastic football, and would probably be celebrated more these days as they'd have been frequent Champions League qualifiers due to finishing third or fourth.
So instead of replacing Evans with Houllier, they decided to make them joint managers.
It was an experiment that was to last just four months.
After a November League Cup defeat to Tottenham in front of just 20,772 fans at Anfield, Evans fell on his sword.
“It is not a matter of one man taking the blame. It is what is in the best interests of the club. I went into the partnership with Gerard with my eyes open and hoping it could work. It hasn't worked. Results have not gone our way," he said at a press conference announcing his departure.
“It is not about the relationship between me and Gerard. It had nothing to do with personalities. It just did not work out. You just feel it is not the right formula for players. They do not know who the boss is.
“It would be easy to stay [in another role], but to give Gerard and his team a chance, you have to walk away.
“I know I could have stayed here, but I decided to make a complete break. I didn't want to end as a ghost on the wall.”
Evans was driven away from Anfield in tears that day, his 33-year association with the club across a variety of roles was over.
Trevor Francis - Crystal Palace, 2003
To Simon Jordan and Crystal Palace now, and the decision to remove Trevor Francis as manager in 2003 after 17 months in the job.
On April 19, 2003 in fact. His 49th birthday.
"People know I am very unhappy with the selection of our players under Francis," said Jordan at the time.
"We have a very strong squad and we should have done a lot better this season - a lot of lessons need to be learned from injury prevention and transfer policy. I don't want play-offs next year. I want automatic promotion. I need to get the right people in place in order to achieve that."
Jordan added that as he informed Francis of his decision: "He just sat there quietly and said 'But it's my birthday'."
Ouch.
Nigel Adkins - Southampton, 2013
There was plenty of anger around this one at the time.
Adkins, formerly of League of Wales side Bangor City and Northampton Town, had brought Southampton up from League One to the Premier League with successive promotions, and halfway through his first top-flight season the Saints had recovered from a rocky start, were 15th, three points above the relegation zone and had just come from two goals down to draw at European champions Chelsea.
Then Adkins was dismissed.
The reason? Mauricio Pochettino was available, with the Argentinean immediately installed as Adkins' replacement.
"I had such good people around me, and a great relationship with the fans. We’d been on a great journey," Adkins recalled last year.
"Then, in the January [of that year], I got a phone call to come to the office. They were making a change – that’s it. No explanation, no reason. Gone.
"I couldn’t phone anybody up to thank them for what they’d done. It felt wrong."
Carlo Ancelotti - Chelsea, 2011
We couldn't end without another Chelsea mention, and the sacking of Ancelotti in the Goodison Park tunnel after the final game of the 2010-11 season.
The Italian had presided over one of the Premier League's most entertaining sides the season before, winning the league and cup double, but coming second to Manchester United wasn't good enough for Roman Abramovich.
“This season’s performances have fallen short of expectations and the club feels the time is right to make this change ahead of next season’s preparations," said a typically brief club statement.
They should probably have saved it for future use.
