BREAKING: Mauricio Pochettino Chelsea sacking truth REVEALED as Todd Boehly set to make huge decision
According to Football London, Pochettino could be sack if he doesn’t change things around.
However, six months on from the last time this happened, which came six months before this last, last happened, which came around 14 months on from the last, last, last time this happened. Chelsea fans seem to have cracked, finally. It had been coming, it’s almost always coming.
Modern football, changing owners, managers of a rival, unhelpful truths and the cyclical nature of elite sport are knocking: it’s Chelsea’s time. Mauricio Pochettino, six months on from taking over one of the most unstable, chaotic and inefficient clubs in the world with a cultural and identity crisis, is being touted as the next man that simply can’t hack it Stamford Bridge. Who can?
This rot goes deeper than the arrival of the Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital lead consortium in May 2022. Before that the club had started to spiral, failing on the transfer front, commercial front, academy front and having any sort of meaningful plan front. Victories in knockout competitions largely papered over cracks as the club failed to match the vision and dedication that being an elite-level football club requires.
This is all relevant to Pochettino. The club he took over was already falling further and further away from the glory days of peak Roman Abramovich, times where more money than sense could secure endless wins and established players could drag sides through entire seasons.
Before Thomas Tuchel arrived it had already been seven years since the club last won the league and last finished in the top four in back-to-back campaigns. The average was already closer to fourth than first and the points had drifted from 80s into 70s into 60s.
That Tuchel managed to squeeze blood from a stone in 2021/22 was an ode to his ability as a coach; that things collapsed under him is evidence of the shaky ground the club had been on for long enough.
It’s not a blame game but his overall numbers speak for themselves.
The comparison of his first 50 games to his last 50 are near enough light and day. Chelsea won four fewer games, conceded double the amount of goals, kept six fewer clean sheets, drew more and lost more in his second half century of games. The feeling had been shaken and the version to troubled times set in, something that had started as far back as 2012/13, really. But from 2018/19 onwards it usually became a chore rather than pleasure to watch, with intermittent periods of success between.
This is what Pochettino walked into. A club less certain of what it is more than ever before, grappling with history and desire, trying to balance ambition with sustainability, with improvement and realism that there are things to work at. So this is the context behind what has been a poor start.
13 games, four wins, four draws, five losses. The second worst goalscoring record in the top half (behind only Manchester United) despite scoring eight in two games before the international break; just three clean sheets and they came against Luton, Bournemouth and Fulham.
That record is two points worse than the opening 13 games of Graham Potter’s Chelsea reign, which began just over 12 months ago. This time last year the former Brighton manager was also in crisis management mode.
Over the World Cup break the Blues were coming off the back of three losses in a row, no win in five and had a major injury crisis. His unbeaten nine game spell to start was long gone and the doubts that had always been around came to the surface.
The problem with Potter was that he was a project manager for a project situation but being asked to firefight. Perhaps outside of that he also didn’t suit the club, but in a calmer environment he may well have thrived.
Tuchel the club could do less about, he was a fan-favourite that the owners inherited. Their call to move him on came as a willingness to get to point dot as quickly as possible, a misjudged decision for the time. For what the owners wanted, rightly or wrongly, he was not the man for the job.
What is less debatable is that Pochettino was the right man for where Chelsea have found themselves. “The best thing about Chelsea right now is Mauricio Pochettino, not the players or the owners,” Jamie Carragher told Sky Sports last month.
“When you talk about them getting back to winning trophies, I’m not sure they could have got a better manager that was available.” He added: “I think there’s a lot to feel good about at Chelsea, Pochettino right now, his young team, there’s a lot of optimism there because they have a manager who can go up against the best.”
It’s hard to argue too much with that. “I don’t think they get top four, but should they, will they still have a fight for it? Of course!” Carragher continued. “You’re not fighting against the best teams in the league if you don’t have a say in that conversation and they’ll be dropping points as well. We’ve seen this weekend that Newcastle have lost, Tottenham lost, and that’ll happen over weekends. People will be dropping points around them but Pochettino as a manager, he’s the thing that’d make me believe they have a chance to compete at the top.”
He finished: “What Pochettino has done in big games is fantastic. He’s a manager who will go up against [Jurgen] Klopp, Guardiola, [Mikel] Arteta and he doesn’t quite have the tools that they have – people will argue about the amount of money they’ve spent and whatever but be honest, look at what they have on paper. It’s still short on what a few of the top teams have but what they’ve managed to do has been fantastic.”
The change in tone between then and now, days after the 4-1 defeat away to Newcastle, is remarkable. Some Chelsea fans, mainly online it must be said, have turned on the manager and used this result as evidence of preconceived notions about Pochettino.
As is standard nowadays, the discourse revolves more around confirmation bias than actual analysis. Not being able to break down a low-block against Nottingham Forest and Brentford is the norm rather than the 3-0 win over Luton, for example. This is largely outside the point though.
Expectations dependent, Pochettino is still on course to do what he set out to this term. It’s not wonderful, especially working with such an expensively assembled squad – something that goes massively against the manager – but the Blues have shown enough to suggest they can compete for European spots even if they fall short of being a true top four challenger. They are one game away from a domestic cup semi-final and still have the FA Cup to come by.
Given the turnover from top to bottom and the position the club found themselves in and have been working from over 12 months, a bit of fight and competition is a starting point. Perhaps that it what made the vacancy at St. James’ Park so bad. This has been the bare minimum, at that, but that bar has dropped so much in recent years it is hard to stomach.
Reports say the owners were demanding Champions League football but that really isn’t something fair to expect. This isn’t the mechanical, efficient Chelsea of 10 years ago. Attempting to continue that Chelsea has partially got the club into this mess over ownerships too.
Whereas the weight of quality could carry team’s through management and turmoil the current squad isn’t equipped to do that. It is worth remembering that although the bulk of the players have changed, what remains was only capable of finishing 12th last year and has no proof of being better than that.
To make matters worse for Pochettino, the league is more competitive than ever. In 2021/22, when the club scrapped itself to third, the top five was about the extent to the challenge. Now there are eight teams that entered this year with genuine hopes of gate-crashing.
Chelsea are the out of form, out of sorts club in all that. Pochettino is working to change that narrative because there’s little else going for him. The bit to remember, though, is that this New Chelsea has an identity vacuum that means changing things and letting him go now, pulling the trigger on an underwhelming start, would only make things worse.