Chelsea move swiftly to find Pochettino’s replacement
The head coach role is taking over in Premier League but new figures with less control can easily become scapegoats
Chelsea are holding round-theclock talks and meetings as they work swiftly and efficiently to appoint Mauricio Pochettino’s successor as head coach.
Telegraph Sport understands that Chelsea made an immediate start on their list of candidates to succeed Pochettino after his departure by mutual agreement was publicly confirmed on Tuesday night.
Kieran Mckenna, Enzo Maresca, Sebastian Hoeness, Thomas Frank and Michel are all of interest to Chelsea, and the club have already made moves to check on more than one of those candidates.
Meetings and talks were held late on Tuesday night and continued yesterday, and into the evening, with Chelsea speaking to a number of people to establish how best to move forward.
No firm time frame has been put on their appointment process, but Chelsea’s fast start indicates they want to find Pochettino’s successor quickly and do not intend to take five or six weeks, as was the case when the club appointed the Argentine a year ago.
Chelsea will also be aware that they could face competition for some of their targets from Manchester United if they take too long.
United play the FA Cup final against Manchester City on Saturday and will not make a decision on Erik ten Hag’s future until after the match at Wembley. Should Ten Hag be sacked, then United have been linked with interest in at least two of the managers listed as candidates for the Chelsea job – Frank, of Brentford, and Mckenna, to whom Ipswich Town are prepared to offer a new contract.
Mckenna is also a target of Brighton, while there is thought to be interest in Leicester City manager Maresca from overseas. Italian reports have claimed Maresca has a release clause worth £8.5million in his Leicester contract.
Sources in Germany have warned that Chelsea could find it hard to appoint Hoeness, who signed a new contract at Stuttgart that runs until June 2027. Hoeness recently said: “You can definitely assume that I will also be the coach of VFB Stuttgart next year. If I had the idea of moving, then I wouldn’t have extended my contract.”
The age of the football manager is dead. Or dying. Certainly in the Premier League it is. Last season there were just nine who held that title out of the 20 clubs; the first time the balance has shifted to the minority. The rest were called head coaches.
Next season it will be even more, with Liverpool replacing a manager, in Jurgen Klopp, with their first head coach in Arne Slot and Julen Lopetegui taking over from David Moyes at West Ham United. Should Erik ten Hag leave as Manchester United manager then his successor can also expect to be given the title head coach.
It would leave just Pep Guardiola at Manchester City, Mikel Arteta at Arsenal and Everton’s Sean Dyche as managers, along with their counterparts at the three promoted clubs – Ipswich Town, Leicester City and either Southampton or Leeds United. Even then, both Kieran Mckenna and Enzo Maresca, of Ipswich and Leicester respectively, are on the radar of clubs who want a head coach.
What does it matter? It is a very British issue. In Germany they are called “trainers”; the rest of Europe call them coaches. Only here do we traditionally call them managers and – until recently – expect them to run football clubs from top to bottom, be the leader, the spokesman and the person who stands on the touchline trying to win matches.
Those who still hanker after managers will point to Chelsea making a complete mess of things with Mauricio Pochettino. Their structure, with two sporting directors, Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley, and with co-controlling owners Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali calling the shots, is all wrong and it is little wonder Pochettino grew frustrated and that they seemed happy to move him on for someone more malleable.
Pochettino is a manager/head coach who craves the first title and the responsibilities he believes it should include. It is partly why many foreign coaches like working in England: because they think they will be afforded more say than on the continent. But that does not mean it is right and it is undoubtedly changing.
Pochettino had grown frustrated at Tottenham Hotspur having been apparently elevated to manager, only to later complain: “I am not in charge… the club need to change my title and description.”
The two most successful clubs in England currently – City and Arsenal – have managers whose roles go far beyond being first-team coaches who work on the training pitch. Arteta successfully lobbied for his title to change to recognise he was being given more responsibility in 2020. Chief executive Vinai Venkatesham said Arteta “was doing much more than being our head coach” and would work with technical director Edu on managing all football operations.
One of the most powerful figures at a club at present is the man Arteta succeeded at Arsenal, Unai Emery. He is head coach at Aston Villa, but has a huge amount of input and control, acting like a traditional manager bringing his own stamp.
Such is the scale of clubs now that it is almost impossible to have a Ferguson or Wenger running everything
It is a frustration for some that they get one chance to succeed but a director of football can enjoy two or three
And it is working. But the shift towards a head coach model is logical, as long as it is structured properly. All Premier League clubs now have a sporting director, director of football or technical director – and sometimes all three.
Picking through the reporting lines and responsibilities can be difficult. As the saying goes, success has many fathers but failure is an orphan. It is a frustration for some head coaches that while they get one chance to succeed, a director of football can enjoy two or three.
Such is the scale of clubs nowadays that it is almost impossible to have a Sir Alex Ferguson or Arsene Wenger running everything. The global nature of football, the demands – from sporting to commercial to media – are just too great. Is it healthy for a manager to negotiate multi-million pound transfer deals or player contracts? Surely that has to require a more specialised approach once the right player is identified?
But the head coach can also become the scapegoat and their power can be diminished too far, as appears to have happened with Pochettino. There is a head coach at a Championship club, for example, who sits on a three-man committee when it comes to buying and selling players. The problem for him is that the other two on the committee are so close that they always vote together, so he is often overruled. He may as well not bother.
There have been suggestions that Slot’s power will be diminished at Liverpool, where the club are being restructured following the return of Michael Edwards, who has been given the title of chief executive of football by owner Fenway Sports Group. But Slot will not have players imposed on him by sporting director Richard Hughes. It will be very much a collaboration. That has to be the way, otherwise, as at Chelsea, it will not work. It is an approach that Slot is used to and comfortable with.
The best-run clubs organise themselves in the way that suits them, with sporting directors who provide continuity and long-term thinking. They do not want a manager or a head coach to give them direction or an identity. They set that out themselves and then hire someone who can implement it, who drives it forward but who can also give it their own stamp.
However, some managers want a club to bend to their will and some clubs want head coaches who do as they are told and carry the can; who become a human shield. Both attitudes are wrong. But what is certain is that the title of manager is being phased out.