INEVITABLY, sadly, irritatingly… Chelsea have ticked a box that indicates “man hired, man fired”. OK, the official line is “mutual agreement” or something similar, but the mood music was of a forthcoming divorce, an amicable ride into the sunset with compensation conformed and a non-disclosure agreement duly signed. Nobody is too convinced by the back-slapping, the bonhomie and the messages of gratitude. Some have come from people who have also failed to deliver what demanding owners want.
Mauricio Pochettino at Chelsea was never a cosy fit. He was just the next name on the list of possibilities in the world of elite football coaches. Forget that he was ex-Tottenham, forget that he hadn’t won a thing in English football, his record was perfectly acceptable before he arrived at Stamford Bridge. But he wasn’t the right man, or at least, he wasn’t the right man for the C-Suite at Chelsea.
Do club owners not consider that no matter what they do, no matter who sits in the dugout, there are equally powerful teams that all want the same thing? It would seem not, for while Manchester City and Pep Guardiola are brothers in arms, they provide the benchmark and for most clubs, it is impossible to keep up. Notwithstanding the money, they have the best manager in modern football by some distance. Chelsea’s owners have spent heavily, thrown cash around like lottery winners with little regard for the value of money, but only in the final months of the season did it look to be working. It would be a fool, however, who overvalues a good run-in as a sign of things to come. Nevertheless, qualifying for Europe was no mean feat and Pochettino has to take the credit for that.
Chelsea’s owners have shown they are every bit as restless as Roman Abramovich when it comes to hiring and disposing of coaches. The difference is the Abramovich way appeared to work, hence the number of trophies won through creative tension. The current owners, like so many American “investors” don’t seem to fully understand the culture of the game in England. Abramovich may not have been totally aware of it, but he employed people around him who could manage that. It didn’t always work, but there was a certain pattern that yielded silverware on a regular basis.
The new regime inherited Thomas Tuchel, but they replaced him with the ill-equipped Graham Potter and then brought back Frank Lampard, a man who was sacked by the club before Tuchel’s time. Pochettino was next on the “things to do” list. Where will they look next?
Naturally, the coaches who have attracted attention from the media and other clubs are being named as possibles: Roberto de Zerbi, Vincent Kompany, Thomas Frank, Kieran McKenna, Ruben Amorim, Michel Sanchez, Hansi Flick, José Mourinho (!) and Julian Nagelsmann. While it is tempting to go with the noise, one-season flashes of genius should be carefully assessed.
This time, the word is that Chelsea want a younger coach – Pochettino was 51 when he got the job (hardly a veteran) and the club’s comments at the time suggested he was the right man. Twice before they had courted the Argentinian . “He is a winning coach, who has worked at the highest levels, in multiple leagues and languages. His ethos, tactical approach and commitment to development all made him the exceptional candidate,” said the club’s sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Lawrence at the time. How do they think now, one wonders. One of Poch’s predecessors, Graham Potter, was 44 when he was hired, supposedly for his innovative coaching methods. Rarely is it ever fully explained why something didn’t work, unless player power is involved to the extent the coach has “lost the dressing room”.
Do Chelsea really know what they actually want? It seems they have a pendulum that swings between “track record”, “innovation”, “player development”, “experience”, “commitment to attacking football” and “youth and potential”. In truth, a little of all of these qualities would provide the ideal coach, but then he would also have to do what he is told. And therein lies the problem in the modern age – managers (like players) are hired because of what they have done, at the very top level it is a seller’s market. Clubs should not be surprised when a new manager follows the pattern of his past. Behaviour, tactics, man management and drive are all part of what attracts a club to a coach in the first place. Do clubs like Chelsea hire because of what their targets are, or what they feel they can make them into? If it is the latter, the guys in the padded seats are in the wrong game.
GAME OF THE PEOPLE 