A second Premier League club has already sacked its manager just a few games into the season and, as much as some pundits and bookmakers are seemingly desperate for it to be Frank Lampard, it of course wasn't the Everton boss.
Thomas Tuchel, following a shock Champions League defeat to Dinamo Zagreb on Tuesday evening, was given his marching orders by Chelsea early on Wednesday. He leaves the London club in sixth place in the league table after the first six matches of the campaign, winning half of those and losing twice.
The decision has come as a real surprise to many, even if Chelsea do tend to do this a lot, especially given what has just taken place in the transfer window. New owner Todd Boehly had seemingly placed a lot of funding and faith behind the manager as the Stamford Bride side went on something of a spending spree to improve their squad.
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Look at Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang's arrival in particular and it seems a real backing of the boss. After all, one of the main reasons credited behind the move was the fact that the pair have worked together so well in the past.
While the big money arrivals did come in, though, one particular prospective target remained. And you've got to think that now seems like a fantastic decision.
Anthony Gordon was heavily linked with a move away from Everton throughout the transfer window, with Tottenham Hotspur the first side to have been credited with interest before Newcastle United and then Chelsea also joined the mix. It was the latter who continued to grab the headlines over the weeks of the transfer window though, right up until the closing days before the deadline.
The winger, to his immense credit, was not deterred by any of the noise. He scored a couple of goals for his side and put his fingers in his ears in celebration, showing to the world that he was not paying attention to anything that might have been said about him.
His brilliant attitude and commitment to his side over the start of 2022/23 proved not only why Evertonians have taken to him so much in the last 12 months particularly, but also why there were so many interested parties ready to make a big-money bid. Talent is one thing, and it's clear Gordon's potential ceiling in that regard is extremely high, but the knowledge that hard work is required to get you to that level is another entirely.
Tuchel particularly was rumoured to have been a big fan of this aspect of the forward's game. A report from the Daily Mail in August suggested that the German had been taken by the winger's performance in Everton's 1-0 victory over his side back in May - taken by his "fearless attitude, his speed and the persistence that went with his talent", as Dominic King wrote.
And so, as seemed to be the theme of the transfer window, the London club's hierarchy seemed to be backing their manager in a pursuit for the Blues man. Lampard, of course, always insisted that he would be desperate to keep hold of such an exciting talent - and even with time running out in the window maintained that a rumoured bid worth up to £60m had not actually been made.
Who knows how close the move actually got, but it's fair to assume there was a high level of interest. In different circumstances, perhaps we could have seen Gordon making the move down to London to try his hand with a Champions League club and fight for his place with some really high-quality talents.
If that had happened, though, it realistically may not have changed the manager's situation in the slightest. He could well have been sat in the middle of real turmoil only a few days after moving to his new side.
Let's be honest, Chelsea will find a top-quality new manager and it's very likely that the squad will have a major bounce because of that. In fact, many will still believe that Tuchel himself could have brought this hugely talented group of players back together in a cohesive manner, but that's beside the point now.
Regardless, there's no guarantee a new Chelsea coach would have rated Gordon in the same way that the outgoing manager clearly did. This could have been a real danger for the 21-year-old to get lost in something of a reshuffle and have his playing time limited in what is a crucial stage of his development.
Instead, the decision was made for Gordon to stay with a boss who clearly rates him incredibly highly and as one of the most important players in the squad. Someone who's been in the position of a young star breaking through at a club before, and has used that experience to hone a couple of top talents in the past too.
Instead, the Blues winger can look on at the bizarre situation from afar, potentially comfortable in the fact that he's not involved in the fallout that is to come.
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