Thomas Tuchel has a right to be bemused, but ruthless Chelsea dismissal was hardly a shock

Chelsea gonna Chelsea.

After a summer in which the Blues have spent more than any other club in Europe, and a start to the season that has shown about as much fortitude and vigour as that bedridden kid from The Secret Garden, Thomas Tuchel has been dismissed.

It turns out you can take the club from Abramovich, but you can’t take that ruthless Abramovich streak from the club.

The straw that sent the proverbial camel to the chiropractor, as it transpired, was a 1-0 defeat to Dinamo Zagreb in the Champions League - a competition that Tuchel won just 15 months ago.

But sentimentality has rarely counted for much at Stamford Bridge - especially since the turn of the millennium and especially with regards to managerial tenures.

Appointments have come and gone with the fleeting frequency of midsummer mayflies, fluttering on the breeze just long enough to produce a trophy or two before shedding the skin of their honeymoon period and promptly collecting their compensation cheque - just the £7 million this time around, in case you were wondering.

In that respect, perhaps it would have been foolish of Tuchel to believe that he was the man to break the cycle. Lull yourself all you want, quieten the beast for a time and kid yourself into believing that you might be special, but even Siegfried and Roy’s tiger turned on them eventually.

Of course, for all of the ruthless traditions that Chelsea have upheld in recent years, things have changed at Stamford Bridge.

Upon the arrival of Todd Boehly, Tuchel might have been able to convince himself that his stay of execution would be longer than most. Like a jittery court member outliving a tyrannical monarch, the German may well have believed that the threat of his neck meeting the chopping block had subsided significantly.

How could he have known that the heir apparently would have a bloodlust all of his own?

Facetiousness aside, there are angles from which Boehly’s decision to remove Tuchel looks, to certain extent, somewhat understandable.

Chelsea’s recent transfer splurges alone were always bound to increase the weight of expectation on the German’s shoulders, even if he did spend most of the summer trying to stockpile defenders like a conspiratorial survivalist hoarding tins of baked beans in a Doomsday shelter before the approaching apocalypse.

Equally, any manager in receipt of Tuchel’s credentials who - with the greatest of respect - losses to Leeds United, Southampton, and Dinamo Zagreb in the span of a fortnight is always going to face heightened scrutiny.

Things have felt as if they have been souring for a while too.

In retrospect, theses could be written on the attempt to grind Antonio Conte’s finger bones into a fine dust, while lingering suggestions that Boehly was intent on luring Cristiano Ronaldo - the only man in human history to cultivate a six-pack on his tearducts - to west London feel as if they are indicative of a fundamental clash of sporting cultures.

Given all that we have witnessed from the bronzed (s)adonis since he made his return to Manchester United, it’s a worrying revelation that the American owner felt he was the man to “turbo-charge” the Blues’ silverware prospects.

It’s almost as if Boehly simply named the most famous footballer he could think of and worked backwards from there. Trying to sign Ronaldo in 2022 is a bit like admitting that your favourite Pokemon is Pikachu, or that your favourite Beatles album is The Best of The Beatles.

Regardless, the business that Chelsea did complete makes the timing of Tuchel’s sacking all the more mystifying.

Why give such exorbitant financial backing to a manager, only to then oust him less than a week after the transfer window closes?

Poor Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s fractured jaw must have hit the floor when news broke of the 49-year-old’s departure.

Fifty-nine minutes of a Champions League group stage defeat can hardly be the wondrous reunion that he or Tuchel so openly pined for in the days prior to his deadline day arrival from Barcelona. There are conjugal visits in high-security prisons that last longer.

All of this is to say that in spite of the precedent Chelsea have set for themselves, there are reasons why Tuchel may justifiably feel a tad aggrieved. At the very least, he has a right to some mild bafflement.

As for the Blues, they look to have proffered the monkey’s paw to Graham Potter of Brighton and ballet fame.

On paper, the Englishman’s appointment is something of a calculated gamble, but one that he has more than earned through his impressive work on the south coast.

Do spare a thought for young Billy Gilmour, the Premier League’s very own Tracy Beaker, passed from pillar to post as the promise of a fresh start with a caring and responsible guardian is cruelly snatched away from him.

If Potter is to succeed at Stamford Bridge, however, he will need patience from the club. Whether that is a character trait that Boehly possesses remains to be seen.

In his sales pitch, the American will no doubt have reassured his new buddy that Tuchel’s expedited departutre was a blip, a necessary evil for the sake of synergy and progress and various other buzz words.

Maybe that’s true. Maybe it’s not. After all, Chelsea gonna Chelsea.