Just when you thought it was safe to be a Chelsea manager…

Back comes the monster of an owner to gobble him up and spit him out.

Todd Boehly is not Jaws. But the sacking of Thomas Tuchel smacks of primeval ruthlessness.

Five days after the closing of a transfer window in which he spent £270 million on players for him, it also smacks of cluelessness.

Either the sacking or the spending – it’s one or the other.

At most clubs, a manager is sacked before a window opens so that the new guy gets to choose his own players.

Now whoever comes in at Chelsea will be stuck with Tuchel’s.

Inevitably, it’s being compared to the way Roman Abramovich went about his business.

Like the American, the Russian was a Mr Big who didn’t leave the dirty work to the HR department.

But usually, he waited until the end of the season and you could understand his reasoning even if it seemed a little harsh.

But this? At first, it felt like sheer, blind panic with defeat in Zagreb the final straw after a stuttering start to the season.

Now, though, it appears it had been coming.

We hear that the new owner and his cronies had already decided that the intense, histrionic German was not their kinda boy.

And to be fair, he can be an awkward customer: he even made Antonio Conte look like the wronged party in ‘handshake gate’.

At Borussia Dortmund, where Tuchel enjoyed his greatest previous success, head honcho Hans-Joachim Watzke said of him: “He’s a fantastic manager but a difficult person.”

So, if Boehly and his boys didn’t fancy working with the guy who had won the Champions League, World Club Championship and Super Cup in his first year, then why not act sooner?

Had they done so, they might still have been able to make Cristiano Ronaldo their marquee signing. But Tuchel didn’t want his ego.

He saved them a bundle and the Portuguese is now no more than a one-man tent.

But at least the rest of the squad would have been much more to the new guy’s liking.

It’s hard to believe that something changed their minds in the last few days.

Even if we buy into the view that Chelsea were not performing as well as they should, it still doesn’t make sense.

Tuchel lasted exactly 100 games which makes it handy for comparisons.

In his tenure of two halves, Chelsea conceded just 24 goals in his first 50 games, but 53 in his second 50.

He turned a side that was going nowhere under Frank Lampard into world-beaters – and with no new signings.

It was one of the great managerial achievements of the era.

But from the second half of last season, they’ve been easier to beat and harder to watch: they’ve played some turgid stuff.

And when Tuchel did sign players, they didn’t always work: Romelu Lukaku being the most expensive ‘square peg in a round hole’ of last season.

He wanted more mobility and got in Raheem Sterling.

But the more money that was spent, the less sense it seemed to make.

£65m – almost twice what City offered – for Marco Cucurella when he already had Ben Chilwell; £70m for Wesley Fofana!

But bringing back Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was definitely a Tuchel signing – the Gabonese flourished under him at Dortmund.

Any assessment of Tuchel or Chelsea cannot be made without mentioning that the club almost ceased to exist midway through last season.

When Putin’s tanks rolled into Ukraine, it spelled the end for Abramovich, seen as “a Putin-supporting oligarch” in the UK government’s phrase.

The club was taken over by the British government for three months. As Abramovich’s henchmen were winkled out, Tuchel was left holding the fort.

And when it was eventually bought by Boehly and Clearlake Capital, he was the man they turned to. The only man.

Although Boehly has been extremely hands-on and appointed himself director of football, he knew nothing of the business and relied on Tuchel.

Something, somewhere went very badly wrong.

Tuchel’s divorce and subsequent affair have been cited for his erratic behaviour, but whatever it was, the timing of the sacking made no sense.

Although Chelsea can still make someone – it looks like Graham Potter – an offer they can’t refuse, the new man will be wary.

As will investors in Clearlake: after their first venture into football, ‘muddy waters’ might be a more appropriate name.

Any new boss is bound to think: ‘If only I could have had that £270m to choose my own players.’

Potter has not operated at this level before and does not possess a magic wand: it took him time to turn Brighton around and they still don’t score enough goals.

But they play nice football and off the field are a model club: the antithesis of Chelsea.

Michael Edwards, who was the mastermind behind Liverpool’s recent recruitment success, is believed to have turned the Blues down for a similar role.

All that said, they’ll have no trouble in hiring. And the season has hardly started.

One loss in the Champions League group phase is not the end of the world.

And in the league, they’re only four points behind City.

You would have thought the owners would have wanted the new manager to be an A-lister, but must at least be commended for opting for a less exalted name as their first choice.

As Potter once said: “It’s hard to be a sexy name when you’re called Potter and your first name is Graham.”

Chelsea won’t mind that as long as whoever takes over can produce sexy football.

Welcome to the madhouse.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.