Gary Neville suggests Chelsea to appoint former PSG manager Mauricio Pochettino
Speaking on the Monday Night Football programme, Gary Neville suggested Chelsea to appoint Mauricio Pochettino after sacking Graham Potter on Sunday.
After another home defeat in the league on Saturday, this time to Aston Villa, the Blues sacked Potter. Bruno Saltor takes over as an interim until a replacement is found.
Julian Nagelsmann is reported to be the main target, while the club were keen on hiring Pochettino when they sacked Thomas Tuchel back in September.
Talking about why Chelsea should appoint the former Tottenham boss, here’s what Neville said (h/t Sky Sports):
“Based on what Boehly has said, Chelsea have done their spending for the next three years – apart from signing a centre forward.
“If they appoint Zidane, Enrique or Diego Simeone, they’re going to want to have another £300m as they won’t like some of the players they’ve previously signed.
“They’ve got to appoint a manager who is going to inherit and like the squad that they’ve got. – a lot of them are young – and I think that man is Mauricio Pochettino.”
The current Chelsea job is not easy for any manager out there. A swelled-up squad due to crazy spending in the last two windows, a team underperforming and a few potentially unhappy players because they are not playing regularly because of the size of the squad.
Keeping those things in mind, it was never going to be easy for Potter to handle so many things in a season where there was a World Cup break in between too. Nothing was straightforward for him and his lack of experience in managing an elite club showed.
If we talk about Pochettino, he is tactically an excellent coach but a failure at the highest level. He built such a good team at Tottenham but never managed to cross the final hurdle. His time at Paris Saint-Germain can be deemed as a massive failure, despite him winning the league in the 2021-22 season before being sacked last summer.
For all fits and purposes, Chelsea are a club that demands trophies every single season. How it would be then justifiable to hire a guy who has underwhelmed in big moments in big clubs?
More Chelsea News:
- Thomas Tuchel claims Chelsea have changed massively since his sacking
- Julian Nagelsmann favourite to replace Graham Potter as Chelsea manager
- Glen Johnson claims Chelsea target Victor Osimhen hasn’t done enough for Didier Drogba comparisons
The other option the club has is Nagelsmann, who has done well at RB Leipzig and Bayern Munich, before getting sacked at the latter because it is a weird club. If we directly compare the German with Pochettino, the former wins hands down.