POCH LUCK
Chelsea coaches have been axed at Christmas and slept with suitcases but Pochettino could survive due to freak scenario
Check out Poch's record compared to the axed bosses from the previous regime
MAURICIO POCHETTINO’S backside should be burning by rights.
Chelsea is the hottest seat in English football for any manager and has been for years.
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The Argentine has been in his job for just 249 days but is already the longest serving head coach since Americans Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali bought the club for £2.5 billion in May 2022.
One of his many predecessors at Stamford Bridge, the outspoken Antonio Conte, claimed he slept with a suitcase by his bed in readiness for the chop.
So with the current team stuck in the bottom half of the Premier League, with the FA Cup the last realistic shot at European football for next season and with a large squad of expensive, new players struggling to make consistent progress, he looks doomed.
Pochettino would have been history by now under the old ruthless regime of Russian autocrat Roman Abramovich.
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One of Jose Mourinho’s two sackings occurred while he was eating Christmas dinner at the club’s training ground. And The Special One won them three Premier League titles.
But a freak set of circumstances may yet save Pochettino from a similar fate.
A perfect storm of managerial movement combined with other factors may yet force this fractious marriage between a headstrong coach with firm ideals and a ‘helicopter’ ownership hovering in the background, to plod on with little love between them.
Pochettino, 52 last weekend, certainly won’t be quitting his £10 million a year job with 12 months left on the contract.
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At the end of this season, all over Europe, bigger clubs than Chelsea will or could be losing their current manager.
Liverpool, Barcelona and Bayern Munich are heading for seismic changes at head coach level. Jurgen Klopp, Xavi and Thomas Tuchel are on the move.
Chelsea's 'billion pound bottle jobs' MUST stick with Pochettino
Erik ten Hag’s dismissal is already a ‘fait accompli’ according to the whispers in the dressing room at Manchester United.
Saudi Arabia’s ruling elite are not known for their tolerance so with Eddie Howe under the cosh with Newcastle 15 points off the top four, there’s another potential vacancy come summer.
Which combined makes it a seller’s market. A lot of big teams will be looking for new managers meaning the best can pick and choose where they land next.
There was a time when managing Chelsea was considered one of the top jobs.
The daily threat of being sacked was counterbalanced by the instant whizz-bang gratification of a massive transfer budget and drive for success. Nineteen major trophies in Abramovich’s 19 years in charge.
Chelsea have won nothing since Boehly and Eghbali assumed control. One Carabao Cup Final defeat to show for more than £4 billion of investment.
A quarter of that splurged on a ‘development’ squad. Thirty two players largely untried and needing time to find their feet. A commodity hardly in great abundance in the modern game.
Which stellar name coach is going to choose hard graft and infinite patience on the pitches of Chelsea’s training ground over the Nou Camp, Anfield or the Allianz Arena where everything is ready to rock n roll?
They have already been linked with a move for Brighton boss Roberto De Zerbi in the summer. The same De Zerbi that Boehly and co did not think was the right ‘fit’ for their club before Pochettino was appointed.
So unless there has been a sea change of opinion in the corridors of power at Stamford Bridge, or Albion’s ‘lively’ Italian has had a personality by pass, that’s an unlikely one.
With form patchy : losing to Liverpool followed by a thrilling FA Cup victory then a desperate draw at struggling Brentford, the fans are demanding their old ‘Chelsea back’.
But that won’t be happening anytime soon. Chelsea must join the back of the queue for the top managers at the moment and there won’t be a Russian oligarch’s pockets full of cash to go around bullying in the transfer market.
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A full dressing room and Premier League rules on financial sustainability have seen to that.
And Pochettino knows it.
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