Chelsea icon Petr Cech’s shock exit from the Blues comes just days after he urged the new club hierarchy and Thomas Tuchel to keep hold of club-record flop Romelu Lukaku.
Cech took up a role as technical and performance advisor after hanging up his gloves at Stamford Bridge, but the 40-year-old became the third casualty inside a week after Bruce Buck and Marina Granovskaia had previously left the club following Todd Boehly’s takeover.
Although Buck and Granovskaia were expected to be moved on in the wake of Roman Abramovich’s exit, Cech’s exit has come as a shock – and a new report from The Telegraph has revealed that the former shot-stopper informed Boehly of his decision to step down in a meeting.
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The new Blues co-owner was eager for Cech – who has been influential in a number of recent transfer decisions – to stay on and help him through the current transfer window.
But Cech was adamant that his time at the club was up – just days after he publicly backed Lukaku to come good this year. The Belgian striker struggled after re-joining the Blues in a £97.5million deal last summer and is set to link back up with his old club, Inter Milan, on a season-long loan deal.
The report outlines that Cech had also privately pushed for the club to keep faith with Lukaku and for them to ‘try harder to make the move work’. But Tuchel – who has already been given more of a say in the club’s transfer operations – and Boehly have decided to farm out the mega-money flop and will receive just £7m from Inter for the loan deal.
When he was asked about Lukaku recently, Cech said: “I personally believe he will have a great season. Last season we saw how strong he can be at the beginning when he came.
“But unfortunately, the long-term injury he sustained in the game against [Aston] Villa slowed everything down and then he had Covid as well.
“I think we could see towards the end of the season, when he was fit and ready to go again, how strong he is. I have full confidence he will bounce back and have a strong season.”