TalkSport pundit and former Tottenham Hotspur pundit, Jamie O’Hara has given his verdict on why he believes that Mauricio Pochettino could struggle at Chelsea.
According to Italian journalist Fabrizio Romano on Twitter, the Blues and Pochettino are continuing negotiations. In the same tweet, he states that current caretaker boss Frank Lampard will remain in charge until the end of the 2022/23 campaign.
Chelsea’s last win came in a 3-1 victory away at Leicester City, since then they’ve lost to the likes of Aston Villa, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Brighton & Hove Albion and Brentford.
Speaking on TalkSport, O’Hara believes that Pochettino is a project manager, because of this he feels the Argentine will struggle at Stamford Bridge.
He stated, “I don’t think it will work, he’s a project manager. That’s why they brought in Graham Potter because they wanted this project. I think you found out very quickly that maybe Graham Potter wasn’t made for it, wasn’t quite good enough to be at the level of where Chelsea are.
“I think that what you’ve got with Pochettino is a project manager you can work with an owner to build a team, build a squad and build a way of pushing them forward.
“The reason I don’t think it will work is because Chelsea are still in the mindset of win at all costs. If you don’t win, you’re out like what they did with Roman Abramovich.
“You know they don’t want a project, they want to win because they’ve been so used to winning for so many years. So for them all of a sudden to now say right, we’re going to bring your Pochettino and it’s gonna have this new project going forward.
“I don’t know if the fans are gonna get on side of it and if they haven’t sticky start, a bit like when Rafa Benitez was manager of Everton, as soon as he goes south a little bit your fans will turn because whether they like it or not, Pochettino is Tottenham.”
In our view, potentially appointing the former Spurs boss is quite a bold move. We feel it puts a lot of pressure on Pochettino from the off and some fans may turn on him quickly if things don’t start off well, due to those ties with the former Premier League club.
Having said that, there are plenty of reasons why the club would’ve gone for him. He developed some top talent at Tottenham including Harry Kane and Son Hueng-min.
One player who excelled under his management was Dele Alli. After his sacking from the North London club, Alli struggled and ended up moving to Everton and he was then subsequently loaned out to Besiktas. The change of scenery hasn’t helped Englishman at all, making a major footballing what-if.
His former teammate Kieran Trippier hailed Pochettino and said he handled him in a ‘brilliant’ way when speaking to the Under The Cosh podcast (as quoted by The Irish Mirror). Trippier also added that during that time, Alli was ‘flying’ at Tottenham.
Perhaps the Chelsea hierarchy want someone who can come in and develop a number of their young players and maybe that’s why they’ve turned to Pochettino.