Around 11:30 am on Tuesday morning, Mauricio shook hands with Pochettino on his departure from Chelsea and left the lawyers to finalize a divorce that didn’t require a relationship expert to predict.
Pochettino is the third permanent manager to leave the club under Clearlake Capital-Todd Boehly ownership, but this time it was mutual. There was no dismissal and no arguments or grudges, just handshakes and an agreement to move on respectfully.
A dinner with co-controlling owner Boehly last Friday evening proved a last supper for Pochettino, but underlined the goodwill that lurked beneath any disagreements or dissatisfaction.
With one year left on his two-year contract signed last summer, Pochettino will receive a handsome reward and can be proud of what he has achieved at Chelsea after achieving European qualification in a five-match winning run at the end of the season. .
Although Thomas Tuchel’s dismissal was a shock, resulting in recriminations, and Graham Potter’s dismissal felt premature and harsh, Pochettino’s mutual departure seemed inevitable for a time and would undoubtedly be considered best for both parties.
Pochettino was called to Chelsea’s training ground in Cobham at around midday on Monday as part of the club’s season review to meet with sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart. He also spoke with co-owner Behdad Eghbali.
There were no disagreements about who should be responsible for transfers or which players should or should not be sold. The differences are explained as more philosophical and relate to the dynamics of working within a club structure.
With a long season just over, no one wanted to make a hasty decision that might later be regretted, so all parties agreed to sleep on the first day of the meeting and reconvene Tuesday morning. But nothing had changed on day two and Pochettino’s departure was verbally agreed around 11.30am.
Boehly had returned to America after dining with Pochettino last Friday evening and visiting him again at Cobham the following day ahead of the final day win over Bournemouth. The billionaire kept in touch by telephone during the conversations on Monday and Tuesday.
No bad blood between Pochettino and club
Ultimately, Chelsea and Pochettino decided it was better to part ways now, after spending twelve relatively amicable months together, rather than try to push through the final year of his contract and risk a messy end to his reign.
There was also the threat that a poor start to next season or a bad period during the season would put pressure on the owners to make a mid-season change, which they have been keen to avoid since the dismissals of Tuchel and Potter.
Chelsea will take part in next summer’s Club World Cup, which starts on June 15, 2025, and Pochettino’s contract would run until the end of that month. There were concerns that keeping him for another year for the sake of continuity would have created a difficult situation around that tournament.
Five consecutive home wins at the end of the season proved enough to achieve European qualification and Pochettino can leave with his reputation intact having also reached the Carabao Cup final and FA Cup semi-finals.
However, throughout a 38-match Premier League season, Chelsea fell short of the owners’ target of qualifying for the Champions League and there were times when they came under pressure from the supporters to leave before the end of the season to implement a change.
The plan was always to assess the club’s performance, including Pochettino’s once the season ended, but clues about the direction of travel had been there for some time.
A few days after the January transfer window closed, Pochettino was asked a relatively innocent question about the merits of permanent coaches, who then provided insight into how two worlds collided.
It also came in the build-up to the 4-2 home defeat to Wolverhampton Wanderers, which left Pochettino fearing for his job.
Argentina was at odds with the club’s structure
Pochettino was dismissive of the set-piece specialists, insisting that “we are a coaching staff in charge of everything” before later adding: “Football belongs to the players. Not to the specialists.”
That was at odds with the structure built by Chelsea’s owners and sporting directors, who have made it abundantly clear that they believe football belongs to the players and the specialists.
Some around Pochettino claimed that Chelsea’s difficulties in defending against set pieces could easily be explained by a relative lack of height within the squad, which would point the finger at those who assembled the squad.
Not only did Chelsea lose to Wolves in the next match at Stamford Bridge following Pochettino’s sacking of gurus, they also lost to Liverpool through Virgil van Dijk’s header from a corner in extra time of the three-week Carabao Cup final. later on.
Chelsea had gone way back in extra time against Liverpool’s children and the nature of Van Dijk’s winner only rubbed salt in the wounds of the club’s sporting directors and owners.
Pochettino revealed he met Eghbali to “share views” after the Carabao Cup final. It later became clear, as exclusively reported by Telegraph Sport, that Chelsea were not only in the process of appointing a new set-piece specialist, but were also setting up an entire department dealing with corners and free kicks.
Bernardo Cueva will start working as head of Chelsea’s set-piece department this summer and Pochettino will no longer have to worry about whether or not he will have to make room on the touchline for another body, which he had warned about and that he alone would decide.
Those close to Pochettino insist he has accepted Cueva’s arrival, yet Chelsea’s desire to build a club structure that includes the head coach has led to irreconcilable differences in approach. It will not have gone unnoticed at Stamford Bridge that Liverpool have advertised for a set-piece specialist since the departure of Jurgen Klopp.
Injury problems plagued the club’s season
Chelsea’s crippling injury list has been a problem for Pochettino both on and off the pitch. Plans for the season went up in smoke when Christopher Nkunku was forced to leave the friendly against Borussia Dortmund due to a knee problem that kept him out until December.
Nkunku only managed two starts all season and Pochettino regularly had to deal with an injury list that reached double figures. Rather than trying to cast blame, the 52-year-old often lamented Chelsea’s bad luck. Behind the scenes, however, the situation raised serious questions and put pressure on all departments of the club.
Pochettino’s influence in Cole Palmer’s stellar debut season for the club cannot be ignored, while he also helped Nicolas Jackson and Noni Madueke through difficult starts to the season and unnecessary penalties in the thrashing of Everton.
Those who have criticized Pochettino’s tactics and substitutions have had to eat humble pie after the decision to sign Marc Cucurella paid off with a number of players impressing from the bench as injuries subsided enough to give Chelsea options.
But even during the five-match winning run at the end of the campaign, there remained a feeling that all was not quite right. Pochettino claimed it “wouldn’t be the end of the world” as he warned he could effectively opt to leave Chelsea. And he didn’t hang around on the Stamford Bridge pitch after the final game of the season to cheer and applaud the remaining home fans.
Pochettino had left the supporters to show their appreciation to the players, the people he believes football belongs to. But it meant that the only men to receive personal farewells were Winstanley, Stewart and Eghbali.