Poor old Mauricio Pochettino just can’t catch a break at Chelsea at the moment.
If it’s not senior players consistently getting injured and hampering the manager’s efforts to start putting together a decent run of results, it’s poor performances more generally and the willingness of owner, Todd Boehly, and his board to keep meddling in first-team affairs.
Is it any wonder that the Blues keep taking two steps back after one forward when the American just can’t keep his nose out of Pochettino’s business.
The Argentinian needs to be allowed to work, and it appears that everything Boehly does is anathema to that – fire sales in transfer windows being just one aspect of an ownership model that clearly isn’t suited to the English Premier League.
Pochettino will have to put up with set-piece experts for Chelsea
Now, according to The Telegraph (subscription required), the owners have decided to bring in set-piece experts, despite Pochettino saying just a month ago that they weren’t needed.
It prompted an outburst in his pre-match press conference where Pochettino announced that he ‘knew his place.’
That can’t be healthy for anyone connected with the club, and whilst one could, perhaps, see that Boehly was bringing new faces in for the good of everyone, it’s a decision that shouldn’t really be his call.
In the modern era the manager doesn’t have carte blanche it’s true, but neither can his authority be undermined on such a regular basis if success is required.