Chelsea are waiting for the winning coach – Kommersant

In the search for a manager who could turn a huge investment into results to match it, the Chelsea management, which has suffered a real disaster this season, seems to have settled on the candidacy of Mauricio Pochettino. Such a choice seems quite rational, given both Pochettino’s rather successful experience in the English Premier League (EPL) with Tottenham Hotspur, and his ability to make progress with the players at his disposal, which is useful for Londoners.

The fact that Mauricio Pochettino is very likely to become the new head coach of Chelsea was reported by almost all leading British media resources, for example, The Guardian and BBC. According to the latter, negotiations with Pochettino, whom the management of the London club preferred to a number of other well-known candidates – such as Julian Nagelsmann, Luis Enrique, Vincent Kompany, are in an “advanced stage”. At the same time, a formal appointment can occur both in the coming days and after the end of the season.

For Chelsea, it will be an attempt to correct the nightmarish situation in which the club found itself after last summer replaced owner – who sold the team of Roman Abramovich to a consortium of entrepreneurs led by the American Todd Beuly.

The new owners have invested huge amounts of money in the club, spending a record amount of about £550 million on staffing within two transfer windows.

However, instead of taking off, Chelsea suffered a disaster on all fronts this season, turning into its undisputed number one loser among all continental giants. He flew out of the FA Cup and the English League Cup early enough, in the national championship with seven matches to go, he takes 11th place without any prospects of rising significantly higher, and last week he said goodbye to the Champions League: in the quarterfinals he was convincingly knocked out by Real Madrid .

This endless fall also had a “side effect” in the form of coaching leapfrog. Chelsea started the season with Thomas Tuchel, who was fired after the first misfires back in September. Graham Potter, Tuchel’s successor, held out at the club until April. After that, for several days, Chelsea were coached by Potter’s assistant Bruno Saltor, and then the team entrusted her former legend Frank Lampard. In the three weeks that have passed since the signing of the contract, he, meanwhile, managed to do everything to convince the management that, in fact, he is an exclusively “intermediate” figure. With Lampard, Chelsea were defeated in all four official matches that fell on this segment.

The BBC, after announcing the almost inevitable appearance of 51-year-old Mauricio Pochettino, conducted a survey on its website among users, asking them to answer the question whether they think the Argentine is a suitable option for the club. On Tuesday, the vast majority of respondents – 68% – voted for Pochettino. In general, experts of the resource are in solidarity with their opinion. Former England striker Chris Sutton called Mauricio Pochettino’s deal “makes sense” but only if Todd Boehly gives Pochettino “full control” of the team and stays “out of the dressing room” at all times.

It is not difficult to explain why the idea of ​​such an appointment in the British football community is extremely favorable. Firstly, Mauricio Pochettino already has rich and successful experience in the English Premier League with a club that is part of the elite. In 2014, he moved from Southampton to Tottenham, which at that moment was going through something like a crisis, or at least stagnation. Under Pochettino, he added sharply. In 2016 and 2017, Tottenham took part in the “golden race” of the championship, in the second case they won silver, and in 2019 they broke through to the Champions League final, in which they lost to Liverpool. The following season, Pochettino was sacked from the club, a move that was seen by many analysts as a mistake.

The coach will return to the Premier League after a three-and-a-half-year hiatus. He spent most of this period of his career managing a real football giant – PSG, with which, it must be said, he did not achieve impressive results in a season and a half.

The Parisians habitually stumbled in the play-offs of the Champions League, and in 2021 they managed to give the gold of the national championship to Lille, which has very modest compared to their own capabilities.

Secondly, some specific qualities of a Pochettino coach are important. At Tottenham, he gained a reputation as a specialist who knows how to make progress from young people and “revive” sour players. Let’s say, before his arrival, the French goalkeeper Hugo Lloris wanted to leave the club, but with Pochettino, who convinced him to stay, he reached the status of a top goalkeeper who played in the finals of two world championships in a row – 2018 and 2022. A similar story happened with Harry Kane. This English striker, cooperating with the Argentinean, has learned to use his goalscoring talent to the maximum.

In addition, Mauricio Pochettino is known for quickly finding a common language with any football player, including superstars.

So, excellent relations with him were maintained by the leaders of PSG – Lionel Messi, Neymar and Kylian Mbappe. Pochettino’s skills will obviously come in handy for Chelsea, in which a whole squad of players who are clearly not up to their high ceiling, like Enzo FernandezRhys James, Mikhail Mudrik, Conor Gallagher, Vesle Fofan, Kai Havertz and a setting in which many sources characterize it as “complex”.

Alexey Dospekhov