Mark OgdenSenior Writer, ESPN FC5 minutes of reading
Chelsea again has a coach in charge of the team. Mauricio Pochettino will be the fourth boss the team has to respond to in a 12-month period. But after a tumultuous year at Stamford Bridge, the former Tottenham Hotspur and Paris Saint-Germain manager has drawn a line to what happened before.
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Jose Mourinho made a bold statement when he declared himself «Special One» on his Chelsea debut in 2004. Jurgen Klopp did the same when he promised to win the Premier League within four years (it took him 5 years, but won it). won the Champions League in 2004). fourth season) during his first press conference at Liverpool in 2015. Both men showed their individual strength at the first opportunity, and it paid off. Pochettino did the same thing at Chelsea, but the hard work now begins on the pitch.
Action will ultimately speak louder than Pochettino’s words, but the 51-year-old’s introductory press conference on Friday felt like a Federal address. The problems were solved, the principles were clearly explained and Pochettino showed his personality to make it clear that managing a club as demanding and complex as Chelsea was the driving force, not be burdened.
All of the above should be the basics of leading a top club, but none of Pochettino’s three direct predecessors were in the role last season – Thomas Tuchel, Graham Potter and Frank Lampard – can check the necessary boxes.
Tuchel, who won the Champions League at the club in 2021, did not accept a change of ownership at Stamford Bridge last summer. He was unable to match the vision of his new boss, Todd Boehly, and was fired a month after the season.
Potter was given the chance to build Chelsea in Boehly’s vision, but the former Brighton & Hove Albion manager lacked the personality, experience and confidence to weather the storm of negative results that followed. He lasted seven months on the job. Then came Lampard, a Chelsea legend as a player but a man whose coaching record did nothing to inspire a skeptical team in need of direction. His stint as caretaker manager — just over two years after being fired from his full-time job at the same club — resulted in eight losses and just one win in 11 games. army.
Pochettino’s tumultuous period as PSG coach will prepare him well for Chelsea. In the French capital, he has to deal with the demands of the club’s Qatari bosses and the difficulties of managing superstar personalities like Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe and Neymar. Two years at the Parc des Princes will feel like a complete school in dressing room and boardroom management – two glaringly different challenges he will have to negotiate at Chelsea.
His first appearance on camera shows he has learned from the experience at PSG as well as from the failures of Tuchel, Potter and Lampard. By making it clear to co-controlling owners Boehly and Behdad Eghbali that they needed his permission to enter the dressing room at Stamford Bridge, Pochettino was not only sending a message to the owners that he was in charge. responsible for football matters, but also to the players. .
It was a gray area last season, with neither Potter nor Lampard ever conveying the feeling that they were in charge. When Boehly spoke to the players and described the result and performance as «embarrassing» after the home defeat to Brighton in April, he was doing his job as a manager and therefore, diminished his value in the eyes of the players. Those same players now know that Pochettino has asserted his authority over the bosses, and they will respect his personal power in doing so.
By telling club record signing Romelu Lukaku, who spent last season on loan at Inter Milan, that he expects him to return to the club for pre-season training in the summer. On this occasion, Pochettino has sent another message to the team: the leaderboard has been wiped clean, and he will make the final decision on whether players are part of the future.
And there are plenty of players still at Chelsea waiting to know if their future is at Stamford Bridge or elsewhere. Changes this summer have ensured that Pochettino inherits an ever-changing pool of players: three players have been added to the squad, most notably the £52m striker Christopher Nkunku, while 11 players including Kai Havertz, Mason Mount and N’Golo Kante have gone.
Last season’s massive spending on new signings has yet to bear fruit, but Pochettino will credit Mykhailo Mudryk’s impressive display for Ukraine at the European Under-21 Championship as proof of the possibility of success. of the 22-year-old at the club after a difficult start. . Youngsters including Levi Colwill, a Under-21 Euro champion with England, and Lewis Hall will also give Pochettino the opportunity to give young players a chance as he has done so successfully at Spurs. He will believe he can quickly get Chelsea competitive again.
But the first stage in Pochettino’s Chelsea rebuild was during his inaugural press conference as the club’s manager, and it was his first big win.
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