Chelsea’s owners are clueless! Worst-run club in football have made yet another massive mistake with Mauricio Pochettino’s exit – and now Stamford Bridge could turn toxic

Pochettino’s exit wasn’t a complete surprise, though. Over the last few months tensions have evidently been building at Stamford Bridge, with the manager directing a few barbs at the club during his press conferences.

After Chelsea were pumped 5-0 by Arsenal in April, he seemingly took aim at the club’s recruitment strategy. “That is the circumstances we are living with. Listen, from the beginning of the season, we were suffering with too many situations that were not helping,” he said.

Then, after an impressive 2-1 win over Brighton, Pochettino said: “That is not my team. That’s Chelsea team. Not my team,” before going on to complain that his team still wasn’t grasping the style he wanted to impose.

Perhaps the most telling evidence that all was not well behind the scenes came before a trip to Nottingham Forest earlier this month. Speaking ahead of that game, Pochettino claimed “it will not be the end of the world” if he parted company with Blues at the end of the season.

“If we are happy, perfect. But it is not only if the owners are happy or the sporting directors [are] happy. You need to ask us also, because maybe (we) say ‘we are not happy’ and we accept the situation and we need to split,” he added.

The root of the disharmony at Chelsea stems from Pochettino’s desire to have more control at the club. This should not come as a shock. Back when they were courting the former Spurs man, he initially rebuffed their advances due to concerns over how much autonomy he would have due to the presence of sporting directors Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley.

Publicly, Chelsea have always insisted that the trio work in tandem when identifying and signing players. Although Pochettino’s barbed comments in recent times surely suggest otherwise.

As reported by The Telegraph, recruitment philosophy wasn’t the only area in which the two parties clashed. A disagreement over the merits of hiring a set-piece coach in January spoke to wider philosophical differences. “Football belongs to the players. Not to the specialists,” he boldly proclaimed.

It seems a strange thing to get so animated about. Although perhaps it’s indicative of Pochettino’s desire to wrestle power away from the club’s sporting directors. Ultimately, this was a battle he was never going to win, with the pair’s close relationship with co-owner Behdad Eghbali meaning their position is secure. The fact that Brentford set-piece coach Bernardo Cueva joined the club shortly after this exchange is telling. Something had to give, and that something turned out to be Pochettino.

The outcome is a frustrating one for fans and players, as there’s clearly been progress under his leadership this season. After a dire start, with late transfer arrivals, injuries and a bloated squad all contributing to a run of just five wins from their first 16 Premier League games, things started to click into place under Pochettino in the second half of the campaign.

The individual brilliance of Cole Palmer played a huge part in this upturn in fortunes, but in the last few months of the campaign especially, Chelsea looked more organised both with and without the ball. A resolute display in a 2-0 victory over Tottenham at Stamford Bridge at the beginning of the month showed off their newfound, defensive steel and they followed this up with a flashy 5-0 triumph over West Ham before winning their final three league fixtures.

Taking 2024 results alone, only title contenders Liverpool, Manchester City and Arsenal picked up more Premier League points than Chelsea. And over the entire campaign, they registered the fourth-best expected goal difference in the division. Considering that Chelsea had the lowest average age in the entire Premier League, even with 39-year-old Thiago Silva among their ranks, and taking into account their horrendous 2022-23 campaign, Pochettino deserves massive credit.

You can even make a case that many of the on-field issues that dogged Chelsea were beyond Pochettino’s control. At the meeting that decided his future, Eghbali is understood to have presented data showing how many big chances the Blues missed this season.

Anyone with an inkling about running a football club might take the view that the manager can do very little about this problem. Composure in front of goal comes with experience, something that Chelsea’s recruitment team have disregarded over the past few transfer windows.

The Blues also made the highest number of defensive errors leading to opposition shots in the Premier League. Again, can individual mistakes of this nature really be attributed to Pochettino? This is surely a predictable by-product of having the youngest squad in the league. Chelsea’s discipline problem – they picked up more yellow cards than any other Premier League side this season – might also be blamed on their players’ lack of in-game nous.

And don’t forget about the injuries. Pochettino essentially never had the opportunity to field his full-strength side this term. Wesley Fofana, Romeo Lavia and Christopher Nkunku missed most, if not all of the season, while starting full-back pairing Ben Chilwell and Reece James have been mostly absent too. Various other key players, such as Enzo Fernandez and Benoit Badiashile have sat out huge chunks of the season too. It’s hard to say how much of a role Pochettino’s training methods have played here, but the mass turnover in the club’s medical team would suggest other factors were at play too.

With all of that in mind, it’s startling that Chelsea were so averse to handing Pochettino a bigger say in things at Stamford Bridge. Indeed, there is a certain irony that the ownership, who have been universally panned for their stewardship of the Blues, were the ones ‘reviewing’ the work of a manager who has made superb progress under testing circumstances this season.

However, even if Pochettino had guided Chelsea back to the Champions League spots this season, the tensions within the club would have remained. It’s clear now that the Blues essentially want a ‘yes man’. A head coach, rather than a manager, who’s capable of not only stomaching the decisions of Boehly, Clearlake and the two sporting directors, but also defending them publicly to the press every week.

The issue with that is that the world’s top-class managers are unlikely to accept such a scenario. Take a look at this season’s top three, for example. Pep Guardiola, Mikel Arteta and Jurgen Klopp have all had clubs tailored to their wants and needs over the past few years, not the other way around. And while Chelsea have attempted to project a modern outlook, by briefing that they want an in-vogue, young coach in the mould of Xabi Alonso to take over from Pochettino, if they are not willing to support their vision then success is surely going to be difficult to come by.

And things could yet turn toxic. Jeers were heard in the first half of the season at Stamford Bridge, but the atmosphere appeared to be turning a corner thanks to the progress that was evident under Pochettino in the final few months of the season.

Whoever replaces the Argentine is not going to be a big name, with Kieran McKenna, Sebastian Hoeness and Thomas Frank among those being linked most strongly with the vacant position. Chelsea fans will find this hard to accept, particularly after having their fingers burnt by a similar appointment, Graham Potter, in the not-so-distant past. It’s also tough to make an argument that any of the names linked represent a significant upgrade on Pochettino, who seemed well placed to carry out the club’s expensive, long-term plan.

There’s also the thorny Conor Gallagher issue. Selling the club’s homegrown captain to satisfy a balance sheet would, quite understandably, be met with visceral anger by the Stamford Bridge faithful. Fellow Cobham graduate Trevoh Chalobah, who Pochettino also rated highly, could be on the chopping block too, which would further irk the fanbase.

In truth, it’s difficult to see any move that Boehly and Clearlake could make this summer being met with universal acclaim among the fans. A strong start to the 2024-25 season is absolutely crucial if Chelsea are to avoid things turning nasty early on.