Chelsea FC Newsletter #Tue26Jan

"Under current circumstances we believe it is best to change managers." - Roman Abramovich

Image by @AlfieNewmanGD

Welcome to a very gloomy Chelsea FC newsletter, the day after the club announced the sacking of legend Frank Lampard.

Roman Abramovich spoke for the first time in a long time, and the only sacking of a manager where he has delivered words for the statement for.

“This was a very difficult decision for the Club, not least because I have an excellent personal relationship with Frank and I have the utmost respect for him,” Abramovich said.

“He is a man of great integrity and has the highest of work ethics. However, under current circumstances we believe it is best to change managers.

“On behalf of everyone at the Club, the Board and personally, I would like to thank Frank for his work as Head Coach and wish him every success in the future. He is an important icon of this great club and his status here remains undiminished."

But these are just words, empty words if you are Frank Lampard right now.

Player power looks to have won once again, with too many players downing tools and Lampard’s job having been doomed for weeks, as I write about here.

Chelsea trained as usual on Monday afternoon, with the session taken by Anthony Barry and Joe Edwards, as further reports came in of player clashes - read about that and see the training images here.

It is clear for all to see which players have stuck by Lampard, and which ones have not. The words here by some of the Chelsea players are raw, emotional, and from the heart - which makes this gloomy day even darker.

But as fans of the club first and foremost, we must now move on and look to the next stage with a totally open mind - the pending arrival of Thomas Tuchel as the next Chelsea head coach.

Image by @AlfieNewmanGD

It looks like the former Mainz, Dortmund, and PSG boss will be confirmed as the new Chelsea manager any moment now, and I have put together this in-depth manager profile on Tuchel, and what we can expect from him at Chelsea. It isn’t all doom and gloom, with many things to get excited about here!

As I said, we have no option but to move on now and back the team and the manager once again, and the Chelsea board are already looking at recruitment plans for the summer.

Most notably they are considering making moves to bring back either Ryan Bertrand or Patrick van Aanholt this summer, with both of them having contracts running out in June.

Read the full story on that here.