“Thomas is a difficult person, but a fantastic coach,” said Borussia Dortmund’s chief executive, Hans-Joachim Watzke, in November 2020. “We broke up because it just didn’t fit.” More than five years have passed since Thomas Tuchel’s reign at Dortmund came to an unceremonious end and now the manager who supported Tottenham Hotspur when he was a child because he liked the name finds himself out of work again.
Chelsea’s lacklustre displays this season despite spending a record £260m-plus in the summer transfer window had left supporters questioning whether this might be the beginning of the end for the 49-year-old only 15 months on from their Champions League triumph at Porto’s Estádio do Dragão. But not many would have predicted the end arriving so swiftly.
