Four reasons why Chelsea should not keep Mauricio Pochettino

Chelsea Croatia’s Roko Škrabić (also known as “TheMightyGorgon” in the comments) is back with another strong take, this time perhaps going against the current prevailing popular opinion regarding the job Mauricio Pochettino has done.

Some of his previous contributions include analyzing Enzo Fernández’s game, explaining Levi Colwill at left back, and most pertinently, Mauricio Pochettino’s strengths and weaknesses.

Be sure to give Chelsea Croatia a follow on Twitter/X.

Don’t I love an unpopular opinion. It might seem those are all I tend to have, but in truth, these moments are the only times I get enough inspiration to write my opinion down. Because, if everyone already thinks it or knows it, what’s the point?

But I am baffled how quickly the fanbase’s position on Pochettino has changed, and frankly, I don’t think it should have. We went from 84% ‘Poch Out’ to 64% ‘Poch In’ in the matter of three football matches, or more precisely five halves. No matter which side you’re on, you have to find it fascinating. Personally, I never saw it coming!

Before we dive in, we need to address the elephant in the room. Yes, I was very much pro-Poch when he was announced (as per the article linked above). And I was wrong. But also kind of right. If you skim through that article you may note the two cons I warned about him are the crux of this current opinion. But, there is more.

I also need to highlight an important matter. I’m all for stability. I think it’s extremely important and just like the board (the old and the new) and the most of our fanbase, I’ve been craving for a long term coach for years, more than a decade now. I was “Potter In” longer than most, up until the very end when it all just went so terribly bad they could no longer keep him, even though they evidently desperately wanted to…

But I’m not for stability just for the sake of it. It needs to be with the right coach, otherwise we’re just wasting time. And god knows we can’t afford another wasted season after these two.

Simply put, I no longer believe Pochettino is the right coach. And here are the 4 main reason why, in order of importance

We won’t go too deep into this as it would require an article of its own, but it’s all down to his playstyle that, put simply, is no longer the meta in football.

Pochettino’s style evolved a decade (and a half) ago during the rise of gegenpressing, an intensive, high-octane running and often chaotic brand of football originating in Germany and spearheaded by Jürgen Klopp. In the meantime, even Klopp (reportedly under the influence of his assistant Lijnders) migrated towards Guardiola’s positional, controlled style, adapting to the ever-changing football meta which nowadays consists of exclusively positional approaches inspired by Pep (and the forefather Bielsa), with all the young and revered up and coming coaches being direct or indirect disciples of Guardiola.

As I wrote last year:

„Not too long ago, Klopp almost exclusively played a similar type of football to Poch (often referred to as gegenpressing), which led him to thrive against big teams and often struggle against anyone who sat deep and let his Liverpool team have the ball. Klopp, however, was smart and capable enough to evolve his team’s style, teach them how to play possession football, and break low blocks with ease. Time will tell if Poch will be able to do the same…“

In retrospect, it’s not just about the low blocks (we’ll return to that in point 2). It’s about control. Pochettino’s teams purposefully create chaos, intending to get into a running match with the opponents, always seeking that ball in behind, always overloading the backline. Chaos by definition lacks method and structure, which means surplus of space is created between the players and between the lines (you’ve noticed the spaces we leave in midfield) which can only be covered by — running and more running. If the players don’t give 110% in each moment, it doesn’t work. Even if they do, it often doesn’t work either.

There’s a reason why we fail to control matches. Why we tend to lose the grip on a match once intensity levels drop (for example in second halves). Once there’s no intensity, the lack of structure gives in and that is always punished in modern football. No wonder why we often have no presence in midfield, even though we have midfielders of serious quality like Enzo and Caicedo, not to mention a workhorse in Conor Gallagher who would, with Caicedo already there, be an overkill in any other system bar this one.

Countless are the moments we were caught with acres of space in the middle, leaving our record expensive midfield pivot overrun and powerless. Contrary to prevailing belief — that has got nothing to do with those two — and everything to do with the system. It is not a mistake of it either, but a deliberate move by Poch and a hallmark of his philosophy. While everyone else today works to pack the middle with bodies to control it, thereby keeping possession of the ball and stopping counterattacks before they begin, Poch does the complete opposite. Amongst other things, that results in basketball style matches* with a particular vulnerability to counters, which is the main explanation why this philosophy tends to create defensively fragile teams (like ours).

*Unfortunately, after a solid few games, the last three of the season were a return to the mean as unnecessarily chaotic games with an unacceptable number of chances conceded. The late turnaround vs Forest and similar narrow victories vs Brighton and Bournemouth merely hid the fact our performances were closer to the bad form of before rather than continuation of the good form we’re said to be in.

This is the crux of why 4-4-2 had gone out of fashion years (decades) ago. 4-3-3 and its variants replaced it simply due to having an extra body in the middle. In the last couple of years we’ve been witnessing the rise of the ‘box midfield’*, which one upped 4-3-3 by a further player, while lately you won’t be overly surprised if you see 5 players hoarding the middle of the pitch. Simply put, that is the direction where football is going, while our coach remains inert to it.

In the 10 or so years since high intensity high pressing teams wrecked havoc to others taken aback by the vigor and ruthlesness, football has naturally gone in the direction of finding a response to it, vastly improving the build up phase. An average team today is several-fold better at escaping pressure and consequently using up the spaces left behind and in between the lines of a gung ho team like Pochettino’s. A further natural response to said improvement is the aforementioned ‘control’, a move to a more possession based approach with less risk, keeping the spaces narrower and more structured, thus improving the press and counter-press while also limiting the opponent’s opportunities to start a counterattack. As mentioned, this tactical evolution has been seen in Klopp’s Liverpool team, but has so far eluded Pochettino. And that is a (the) problem.

*Poch usually likes to form a box midfield too, but not with the same intention or structure as, say Pep or Arteta do, and not with the same spacing, which is crucial.

Regarding Arteta, if anyone’s ever used his early (and not so early) Arsenal struggles in defence of Poch, reinforcing the need for stability and time, this point is what makes all the difference; Arsenal knew they had a modern, progressive, structure-based coach most akin to his teacher Guardiola, while what we have is an outdated, gung ho style, „passun“ first coach most akin to... my god, Frank Lampard?

That is why it was worth it to Arsenal to give Arteta time and trust, and that is why it is not worth it to us to give the same to Poch.

Again, referencing last April’s piece:

„Quite some time has passed since his latest period of success. Most coaches enjoy their peak during 10, maybe 15 years. After that they often fade away from the top, as if their ideas no longer work as well in the newer footballing times. Mourinho and Arsene Wenger are probably the best examples, but there are many more. Since Pochettino took over the young Spurs team and subsequently lifted them up to unexpected heights, 9(!) years have passed. He led his last Premier League challenge six years ago (against us, also the last one we challenged), and the Champions League final he took Spurs to was a full four years ago. In the four years since, he has had a bad half-season with Tottenham, semi-unsuccessful season and a half with PSG, and the rest of it he was chilling at home or working in media. I sincerely hope his time at the coaching top hasn’t already passed and that his high pressing, attacking football still has its place in today’s football meta.“

- Unfortunately, the answer is no.

I know many of you don’t give a flying falcon if the football is modern or progressive or whatnot — as long as it’s giving results. That is a fair standpoint. Alas, no one can say Mourinho or Conte are or were progressive for a large chunk of their succesfull periods, however, they were tactical geniuses. Poch doesn’t seem like the type.

Whether it’s late substitutions, lack of clear patterns of play, rarely seen in-game tweaks, seemingly counterproductive team talks, misuse of important players (Enzo), hitting the brakes in the worst moment in a cup final, general inability to keep hold of leads, terrible set piece and ever worse defensive record... everything around Poch gives an impression of an average tactical mind.

No one will ever mistake Pochettino for a tactical mastermind like Tuchel, and it is sobering to realize how used to we’ve become to having that edge on the bench, something we no longer seem to have with Poch there. Even the good performances in the big games (minus United and Liverpool away which were criminal) are not attributed to Poch outsmarting the opponent, but rather to the already mentioned fact his style of football inherently thrives in big games. That is further proved by the relative underperformance we’ve had this season in the ‘smaller’ games.

Coming back to the low block debate – it seems that issue has largely been overcome this season. However, not without sacrificing any kind of defensive stability. While we did have one of the best attacking seasons in recent times, we’ve also had the single worst defensive season since the beginning of Premier League. It can’t be an accident. With solving one problem by loosening up, Poch created another one, as overly simplistic as that might sound. I can’t call that progress nor good coaching. Progress and good coaching would be improving at one thing without ruining the other one, ending up pretty much at the same place where you were before - just with more goals, on both sides.

Often times Pochettino seems to do the obvious thing, but late (just like his substitutes). The ‘inversion’ of Cucurella is a most recent example, one he’s lauded for even though many people (including me, just bragging) have been clamoring for it for months – and he only did it when he practically had no other choice – the 14 injuries forced his hand (playing 3 center backs alongside Cucurella meant the only sensible solution was to invert him). His later ‘explanation’ of „needing to first build a chair to be able to sit“ sounds as wise as it is actually completely silly. There was no reason why we weren’t able to invert Cucurella earlier, and he knows it. He’s probably still chuckling how many people fell for the explanation!

Overall, even though he does have some redeeming qualities (top tier man/team management), he’s just not that calibre of a coach we need (and deserve)...

There have been some worrying reports of Pochettino’s outdated (here’s that word again) fitness methods possibly worsening our already terrible injury record. Apparently, the most workload our players are scheduled to have is the day before a match, which is baffling to others in the industry, including sport medicine experts and our own players.

Unlike the first two points which can be seen at first hand, this one is more speculative and we cannot be sure if it’s true. Most of these reports come from the respected Twitter Chelsea fan Alex Goldberg* who does have a source or two in the building, but that is not enough for anyone to claim it as gospel. However, it would symptomatically tie into Poch’s reputation as a fitness freak, the rising notion his methods are outdated, our worsening injury record this season, and well documented reports of players apparently blaiming his fitness regime for their injuries in his previous clubs (Spurs, PSG).

*We can now add The Guardian’s Jacob Steinberg (Tier 2 for Chelsea) to the list.

There is also a recent report from Simon Johnson of The Athletic (who’s suddenly become very much ‘Poch In’) whose player source described Poch’s training methods as „underwhelming“ – whether or not it was meant in a fitness or footballing sense (or both) is unclear, but either would make sense in respect to the previous point, or this one (or both).

Again, we cannot be certain if this is true, but even if half of it is – there is no way we can afford to keep such a coach knowing how crippling our injury record has been for the last few years.

At this moment, to my confusion and disappointment, many believe this season has been ‘good’ and that 6th place is not an underperformance of any kind by Pochettino. I wholeheartedly disagree. We’ve spent most of the season languishing around 10th place. Is that the new normal for Chelsea?

Sure, it matters not where you were, but where you finish, however, I’d argue our late rise in the table is just as much a consequence of the sorry pack in front of us deteriorating to their new lows, as it is the fruit of our own improvement – hell, we shouldn’t have been behind the likes of West Ham or (the worst ever) Man United in the first place!

In fact, the whole argument of progress is based on the absolute shitfulness of the prior period*. As in - we were so historically bad before, meaning how we perform now, even though it’s below or just about the bare minimum you’d expect, this is progress! As our Nigerian friends would say – dey play...

*In fact, up until Potter’s last round, his and Poch’s results were pretty much on par, difference is Potter got fired and the season completely unraveled, while Poch stayed (only because the board learnt from past mistakes) and was allowed to reach the tangible improvement phase.

Let’s put it like this – look at Villa’s and Spurs’ squad, for example. Clubs that finished in front of us. Now, tell me they’ve got the better players, I dare you!

… They don’t. And it’s not even close. Even with all the injuries, our squad is distinctly 4th best in the league, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise... And we’re nowhere near 4th. That is, by definition, underperformance. We can sugarcoat it however we like, but 6th place and Europa League (or even worse, Conference) is not good enough and this season has unfortunately been an(other) abject failure*.

*Here’s where some will invoke the fact we’re 4th since this and that round, but I once again return to the argument of fake progress from above – how and why were we worse than that in the first place? That should have been the norm from the beginning.

However, even if we do accept this as improvement and progress – and even if we don’t – it doesn’t matter. The first 3 points of this article are much more important. I’m perfectly fine with underperformance for a certain amount of time, as long as there’s light at the end of the tunnel. As long as we feel that the future may be bright… But is Pochettino the coach to lead us to that future? Can he coach a top team in this year and time? Can we picture him with a Premier League trophy in his hands?

Poch has obviously had many unfortunate circumstances which should not go completely unmentioned – the injuries, a young team, too much change at once etc. – however, the very existence of any of the first 2 (let alone 3) points overshadows any possible excuse we can think for him.

Points 1) and 2) are, in my mind, enough to move on from Poch. 3) would surely be enough for anyone, but I have to repeat we’re not 100% certain of it. Lastly, even if I’m right about 4) (i.e.us underperforming this season), as I said it can be ignored if you think you have the right coach for the future, but 1-2 make sure we don’t.

Why would it be such a problem to give him one more season to continue the ‘progress’ and wait for a better alternative to come up? Because next season, when he gets us Top 4 (which should be no issue with the team he will have at disposal), it will be just as hard to sack him, with many fans and board members still convinced it’s all part of process/progress. What happens then is we don’t waste one or two seasons with the wrong coach – but three. Simply, if he’s not a long term solution, he’s not a short term solution either, because the longer he’s here, the deeper his roots are.

I say cut it at the root.