Sacked manager reportedly left the club after his relationship with the players was said to have been altered by his love life, which sparked gossip among the squad.
The 49-year-old German, who is said to have received a £13million pay-out, was following the club’s defeat to Dinamo Zagreb in their opening fixture on Tuesday night.
The 1-0 defeat in Croatia marked Tuchel’s 100th game in charge, but the underwhelming performance meant it was his last, following recent surprise defeats in the Premier League too.
Now it’s been reported that ‘perceptions of him changed’ at Chelsea, following his split from his wife of 13 years, Sissi, in April.
The couple share two daughters.
Tuchel has since moved on with Natalie Max, 35, with reporting they’d been together since May as photos were published of them enjoying a romantic holiday together in Sardinia in July.
Consequently, his love life with a younger girlfriend was said to often be ‘on the lips’ of his squad at Chelsea.
One source told : ‘He’d stopped getting through. It probably didn’t help that some players had been talking about his private life.
‘It played into how the perception of him transformed. He was no longer the genius.
‘He was a difficult character, whose demands weren’t always clear’
They also claimed that ‘a number’ of players ‘bristled that he didn’t really trust them’.
‘It all just fed into this fractious start to the season,’ they added.
Tuchel had been in charge at Stamford Bridge since January 2021 and led the side to Champions League glory that season.
His dismissal comes three months after the consortium led by Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital took ownership of Chelsea, buying the club from Roman Abramovich.
Liverpool legend Graeme Souness has since laid the blame for Chelseas’s poor start to the season at the door of and not Tuchel.
The biggest spenders in the football world, the Blues spent close to £300m to bring in the likes of Raheem Sterling, Kalidou Koulibably and Wesley Fofana in the transfer window but they missed out on a number of their top targets.
Metro.co.uk has contacted reps for Chelsea FC for comment.
