After having the evening and over night to reflect, it’s time to pen my reactions to last night’s massive news that came in.
It certainly didn’t come from nowhere, I was sensing it was going to happen all day after whispers over night and then again throughout yesterday.
I knew how annoyed Pochettino had been all season. If anyone claims different then I am afraid it’s just inaccurate. Of course Pochettino wanted more of a say in recruitment, he literally even said so much publicly!! How anyone can try and hide that fact is beyond belief to me. He didn’t/doesn’t want Conor Gallagher and Trevoh Chalobah sold, he wanted a replacement for Armando Broja in January and naturally didn’t want to play the rest of the season with ONE striker! And he consistently asked for more Premier League proven players and experience. SO many reliable outlets have also reported this FACT.
Whether he is right to do that or not I know will bring more debates. But for me, if you are a head coach of a club and said club is trying to sell two of your players who you rely on, one of which you have picked every game bar one all season, then I think you have every right to question that. Nobody wanted to see another Thomas Tuchel situation where he had full control of new arrivals and mistakes were made. But if a head coach cannot have a real say on who he keeps in his squad and who he can add to it, then what on earth are we doing here?
The Daily Mail’s Kieran Gill, who is reliable, says that sources told him that Chelsea want a ‘puppet’ as a manager, and that says a lot.
Pochettino has clearly decided that he is not a puppet, and can anyone blame him?
And that right there, is one of the reasons I am pleased to see him go. If it was like this at that stage, if he was annoyed at this point, which he was, then it was only going to get worse wasn’t it? We had seen that all before with the likes of Antonio Conte, it would only get more toxic. So it was right for him to agree to mutually depart. I don’t think it is right for Chelsea to operate how they are now operating though and not wishing to listen to what their manager wants to an extent – I believe there needs to be a much more collaborative approach. Why are they putting all their faith in two sporting directors who have never built a squad before?
But with all that said and Chelsea seemingly sticking with their vision and structure for the first team squad, then Pochettino was never going to work was he? Therefore he had to go.
The other reason he had to go, and something I’ve not changed my stance on and went from being a popular opinion to an unpopular opinion in the space of three weeks, is he is just not tactically good enough as a coach for me.
Man-management side of things he is great, but his tactical setups, lack of patterns, structure, and defensive stability in his setup, was enough for me to want a change. Some of the performances witnessed and the amount of goals conceded for me has been embarrassing. Luckily I have a long-term memory, and many of the games have been painful to watch this season. Of course there has been issues with injuries, but I don’t believe that the starting Xl we have had out this season has been so depleted to the level that we had spent a lot of it sat in 12th position in the league.
He also didn’t even try and build a connection with the Chelsea fan base, which is so important to do. I was annoyed with his contradictions in press conferences, and he would rarely take an accountability for the rough periods. I remember how gloomy and toxic it was this season, not just the last five games. Playing players well out of position on many occasions was also frustrating, in particular Levi Colwill as a left back and Ben Chilwell as a left winger.
For me, all of that was enough to still want him gone, and that remained my stance. So yes, I am pleased he has gone.
I can be pleased he is gone but also now be concerned about who is coming in. And yes, it may well be a case of ‘be careful what you wish for’. I’m ready for that backlash, and maybe it does come. Maybe I’ll regret wanting Pochettino gone. Who knows?
One thing for sure is that I’m seriously losing my trust with them lot making the right decision on managers now regardless. Some of the names linked are hideous, others are just massively risky.
I will hold out my judgement until we see who is seriously being considered as like a final three before I go in too much on this or panic too much. Because at the moment there is just a bunch of outlets throwing around a bunch of names, and I personally haven’t been able to attain a solid choice of managers being considered yet. All I know is that we contracted a number of potential new managers yesterday as soon as Pochettino went, so I will find out more soon.
Just as a little feeler though, these are the names that have been mostly and reliably linked to Chelsea yesterday…
- Kieran Mckenna
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Thomas Frank
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Eddie Howe
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Michel
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Enzo Maresca
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Sebastien HoeneB
Underwhelming to say the least. However, as I say, I am going to wait to really see who are leading candidates and see who actually gets interviewed before really making a judgement on this.
This is my major concern, but I still didn’t and wouldn’t have changed my stance on wanting Pochettino gone due to the two reasons I explained above. When things get like that, there’s no way a manager can continue. I also wont change an opinion formed over time in the space of just three weeks. I was open to Pochettino staying and would have given him the next ten games IF they decided to roll with him, but my stance never changed and wouldn’t have off the back of a few games.
So yes, maybe they do just want a ‘yes man’ after all. Sigh.
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