With Mauricio Pochettino to Chelsea “really close”, according to Fabrizio Romano in today’s Daily Briefing exclusively for CaughtOffside, we thought we’d take a look at how well suited the Argentine is to the huge challenges awaiting him at Stamford Bridge.
The Blues are currently having one of their worst seasons in living memory, sitting 11th in the table with a goal difference of minus-three, and now guaranteed to finish without silverware after being dumped out of the Champions League – a competition they may not be back in for a while.
With a bloated squad full of a strange mish-mash of signings by the trigger-happy Todd Boehly, it’s not clear that even the very best managers in the world could turn things around at Chelsea, and there are reasons to suggest Pochettino isn’t quite in that bracket anyway.
Read on for our concerns about the former Tottenham and Paris Saint-Germain manager as he closes in on the Chelsea job…
No silverware at Spurs
While everyone raves about Pochettino’s time at Tottenham, it’s worth remembering that he didn’t guide the team to any trophies.
And, yes, while plenty of other Spurs managers have also failed this test, most others didn’t have several years of working with the likes of Harry Kane, Christian Eriksen, Son Heung-min and Toby Alderweireld during their peak years.
Pochettino deserves full credit for putting together such a strong team and for getting the best out of those players, but it’s then only fair that we judge him for failing to get them over the line in some of their most important matches.
The Argentine lost both the Champions League and Carabao Cup finals, and also messed up huge opportunities in the 2015/16 title race, and the FA Cup semi-final the following year.
Other managers might not have built that team in the first place, but there are surely plenty who could have come in and taken them a step further. By the end of his reign, it seemed clear Pochettino had taken Spurs as far as he could. He’ll be coping with a lot higher expectations than that at Stamford Bridge.
Underachieved with an amazing PSG squad
Despite boasting the likes of Kylian Mbappe, Neymar, and Lionel Messi, Pochettino actually missed out on the Ligue 1 title in his first season in charge at PSG, whilst also failing to make any progress in the Champions League with this star-studded squad.
Strolling to the title with this PSG side should be pretty much a given for…
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