Pochettino leaves job at Chelsea
Coach agrees ‘amicable’ exit following two days of talks Mckenna and Frank among list of possible replacements
Mauricio Pochettino has left Chelsea by mutual consent after meeting sporting directors Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley, and co-controlling owner Behdad Eghbali, over the course of two days.
Telegraph Sport can reveal that Pochettino agreed to his departure late yesterday morning, following the club’s end-of-season review which started on Monday.
There is not thought to be any bad blood between Pochettino and Chelsea, who will immediately start their search for a replacement.
A coach regarded as being young and progressive will be targeted. Among those likely to be considered will be Stuttgart’s Sebastian Hoeness, Girona’s Michel, Ipswich Town’s Kieran Mckenna – who has been lined up by Brighton – Leicester City’s Enzo Maresca and Brentford’s Thomas Frank.
Pochettino had met co-controlling owner Todd Boehly for dinner on Friday night before, spending several hours on Monday and yesterday with Winstanley and Stewart, and meeting Eghbali.
It means Pochettino leaves after one year of the two-year contract he signed last summer and is in line for significant compensation.
The departure of Pochettino – broken online yesterday by Telegraph Sport – has been described as “amicable”. It makes him the third permanent head coach to lose his job under the Clearlake Capital-boehly ownership, after Thomas Tuchel and Graham Potter. Bruno Saltor managed Chelsea for one game last season, before Frank Lampard took interim charge. Five managers have worked under the owners in two years.
A run of five successive wins at the end of this season clinched European qualification, and the team also reached the final of the Carabao Cup and the semi-finals of the FA Cup. Pochettino has thus left with his head held high and his reputation intact. But, in the opinion of key figures at Stamford Bridge, the season fell short of expectations and raised issues such as the crippling injury list.
Pochettino said: “Thank you to the Chelsea ownership group and sporting directors for the opportunity to be part of this club’s history. The club is now well positioned to keep moving forward in the Premier League and Europe in the years to come.”
Chelsea announced that Pochettino’s coaching staff, Jesus Perez, Miguel d’agostino, Toni Jimenez and Sebastiano Pochettino, had left the club. Winstanley and Stewart said jointly: “On behalf of everyone at Chelsea, we would like to express our gratitude to Mauricio for his service this season. He will be welcome back to Stamford Bridge any time and we wish him all the very best in his future coaching career.”
Pochettino is scheduled to take charge of a World XI versus an England select in a charity match at Chelsea on June 9 to raise funds for Unicef.
At around 11.30am yesterday, Mauricio Pochettino shook hands on his Chelsea departure and left the lawyers to finalise a divorce that had not required a relationship expert to predict.
Pochettino is the third permanent manager to leave under the Clearlake Capital-todd Boehly ownership, but this time it was mutual. There was no sacking and no arguments or rancour, just handshakes and an agreement to move on respectfully.
A dinner with co-controlling owner Boehly last Friday proved to be a last supper for Pochettino, but underlined the goodwill that remained underneath any disagreements or dissatisfaction.
With one year remaining on the two-year contract he signed last summer, Pochettino will receive a handsome pay-off and can be proud of what he achieved, having clinched European qualification in a five-game end-of-season winning run.
While Thomas Tuchel’s sacking was a shock, resulting in recriminations, and the dismissal of Graham Potter felt premature and harsh, Pochettino’s departure appeared inevitable for some time and would no doubt be regarded as the best thing for both sides.
Pochettino had been called into the Cobham training ground at around midday on Monday as part of the club’s end-of-season review to meet with sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart. He also spoke with coowner Behdad Eghbali.
There were no disagreements over who should be in charge of transfers or which players should or should not be sold. The differences are explained as being more philosophical and relate to the dynamics of working within a club structure.
With a long season only just finished, nobody wanted to make a rash decision that could later be regretted, so all parties agreed to reconvene yesterday morning. But nothing had changed and by 11.30am, Pochettino’s departure was verbally agreed.
Boehly had returned to the United States after dining with Pochettino last Friday and visiting him again at Cobham the next day, ahead of the final-day victory over Bournemouth. The billionaire had kept in contact by telephone during Monday and yesterday’s talks.
No bad blood
Ultimately, Chelsea and Pochettino decided it was better to part now, after completing a relatively amicable 12 months, rather than trying to push through the final year of his contract and risk a messy end to his reign. There was also the threat that a shaky start to next season, or a bad run later, would put pressure on the owners to make a mid-season change, which they have been keen to avoid since sacking Tuchel and Potter.
Chelsea are due to compete in next summer’s Club World Cup, which starts on June 15, and Pochettino’s deal was due to run until the end of that month.
There were concerns that keeping him another year for the sake of continuity would have created a difficult situation around that tournament.
Clinching European qualification means Pochettino can leave with his reputation intact. Chelsea, however, fell short of the owners’ target, which was to qualify for the Champions League and there had been times when they came under pressure from supporters to make a change.
The plan was always to review the club’s performance once the season had finished, but clues over the direction of travel have been there for some time.
It was a few days after the January transfer window shut that Pochettino was asked a relatively innocuous question about the merit of set-piece coaches, which subsequently provided a window into how two worlds were colliding.
It also came in the build-up to the 4-2 home defeat by Wolverhampton Wanderers that left Pochettino fearing for his job.
At odds with club’s structure
Pochettino was dismissive of setpiece specialists, insisting “we are a coaching staff in charge of everything” before later adding: “Football belongs to the players. Not to the specialists.” That was at odds with the structure being built by the owners and sporting directors, who have made it abundantly clear they believe football belongs to the players and the specialists.
Some of those around Pochettino claimed that Chelsea’s difficulties at defending set-pieces could be easily explained by a relative lack of height within the squad, which would point the finger at those who assembled it.
Not only did Chelsea lose to Wolves in the next game at Stamford Bridge, following Pochettino’s dismissal of set-piece gurus, they also lost to Liverpool to a headed Virgil van Dijk goal from a corner in extra time of the Carabao Cup final three weeks later.
Chelsea had wilted badly in extra time against Liverpool’s young players and the nature of Van Dijk’s winner just served to rub salt in the wounds of the club’s sporting directors and owners.
Pochettino revealed that he met with Eghbali to “share opinions” after the Carabao Cup final. It later became clear that Chelsea were in the process of not only appointing a new set-piece specialist, but were setting up an entire department dedicated to corners and free-kicks.
Bernardo Cueva will start work heading up Chelsea’s set-piece department this summer and Pochettino no longer needs to worry whether he will need to make space on the touchline for another body, which he had warned he alone would decide.
Those close to Pochettino insist he had come to accept the arrival of Cueva and yet Chelsea’s desire to build a club structure that the head coach was part of caused what proved to be irreconcilable differences in approach.
It will not have gone unnoticed inside Stamford Bridge that Liverpool have advertised for a set-piece specialist since the departure of Jurgen Klopp.
Injury issues plagued season
Chelsea’s crippling injury list was a problem for Pochettino on and off the pitch. Pre-season plans went up in smoke when Christopher Nkunku was forced out of the friendly against Borussia Dortmund with a knee problem that kept him out until December.
Nkunku managed only two starts over the entire season and Pochettino regularly had to contend with an injury list that ran into double figures.
Pochettino’s influence in Cole Palmer’s amazing debut season for the club cannot be dismissed, while he also helped guide Nicolas Jackson and Noni Madueke through difficult starts to the season and an unnecessary penalty row in the thrashing of Everton.
Those who have criticised Pochettino’s tactics and substitutions have had to eat humble pie after the decision to invert Marc Cucurella paid dividends and a number of players made an impact from the bench once the injuries cleared enough to give options.
But, even throughout the winning run at the end of the campaign, there remained a sense that all was not entirely well. Pochettino claimed it “would not be the end of the world” during a warning that he could effectively choose to quit Chelsea. And he did not hang around on the pitch after the final game to applaud and clap the home fans who had stayed behind.
But it meant the only men who got a personal goodbye were Winstanley, Stewart and Eghbali.