Tottenham Hotspur have tried not to get caught up in past glories. They didn’t even make contact with Mauricio Pochettino.
Chelsea have appointed Pochettino. “Chelsea are delighted to announce the appointment of Mauricio Pochettino as manager of the club from the 2023-24 season,” the club said on its official website on Monday. Pochettino will begin work on July 1, 2023, and the club has signed a two-year contract with an option to extend for one more year.
He has already started work with Chelsea. “Pochettino has already begun working with joint sporting directors Lawrence Stewart and Paul Winstanley,” Nizar Kinsella, who covers Chelsea for the UK’s Evening Standard, reported on Monday, adding that Pochettino has already begun laying the groundwork at Chelsea.
Just what Chelsea needed. The Blues have added to their squad this season with aggressive signings, but the lack of cohesion and motivation 먹튀검증 has led to a disastrous 12th place finish in the league. Pochettino’s ability to play the right players and provide a vision for the team will be key to turning things around.
This was on display at Tottenham. Pochettino is a good manager of players, and his strength is in getting the most out of his players through gentle leadership and the right tactical mix. In fact, his “desk line” and player harmonization at Tottenham led to results such as the 2018-19 UEFA Champions League (UCL) runner-up finish.
That’s why he’s been linked to Tottenham. Tottenham had hoped to win the title with Antonio Conte this season, but the Italian dropped a ‘bombshell’ in public when the time came for him to leave the club.
The search for his successor has also been difficult. Initial favorite Julian Nagelsmann turned down both Chelsea and Tottenham. Arne Slott, who has since led Feyenoord to the Dutch top flight, was heavily linked with the job, but Slott re-signed with Feyenoord, betraying Spurs’ hopes.
Some Spurs fans wanted Pochettino. They wanted Pochettino because he knows Tottenham and has led the club’s renaissance.
But Pochettino was not on Spurs chairman Daniel Levy’s agenda. Fabrizio Romano, a journalist familiar with the European soccer transfer market, said on Monday (June 29), “Tottenham have never been in contact with Pochettino this year. It’s not that he rejected Tottenham, there were no concrete conversations.”
Dan Kilpatrick, a dedicated Tottenham reporter for Britain’s Evening Standard, said on Sept. 29: “Levy was against the idea of rehiring the club’s most famous manager in the EPL era. The two men have remained in contact but it has never led to a contract.”
That’s because things have changed. Levy tried to reunite with Pochettino in 2021, but Pochettino left for Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), where he was unsuccessful and former president Fabio Paratici ruled him out as a managerial candidate. Add to this the fact that Levy is concerned about Pochettino’s Tottenham’s downfall in 2019.
Nevertheless, there is still some concern about Spurs’ choice. As Kilpatrick explains, “Overlooking Pochettino is obviously a big gamble. Whoever Levy appoints will face comparisons to Pochettino,” said Kilpatrick, arguing that Spurs could easily be caught between a rock and a hard place.
“If he succeeds at Stamford Bridge, Spurs fans will have to live with the memory of the manager they once had and could have had forever.”