With Frank Lampard on the ropes at Stamford Bridge, will Chelsea regret not going after Mauricio Pochettino before Paris Saint-Germain snapped him up?
He was the elephant in plenty of club executive meeting rooms all year—Zoom rooms, that is. Now, like an Argentine Dumbo, he’s flown from the nest and headed to Paris. His departure from the managerial nether zone to the managerial domestic trophy-dome should be cause for concern across the land. We’re talking, of course, about Mauricio Pochettino’s presentation at Paris Saint-Germain, and the reluctance of many boards across the European landscape—including Chelsea’s—to rethink their current regimes in time.
Since his sacking from Spurs in November 2019, Pochettino has been the hottest manager out of the hot seat. Though his Tottenham tenure ended in a very Spursy ignominy, few could doubt his resounding class. This was true even in the west half of London as the passion he engendered during that fateful Champions League run was as inspiring as it was infuriating. To sum up, this is a generational tactician on the market, just waiting to be courted—so, why wasn’t he?
Well, all the elites of Europe seemed to be engaged in a prolonged game of Chicken. This is particularly true for the three clubs seemingly most likely to pick Pochettino: Manchester United, Real Madrid and Chelsea. All three were stuck in a very particular quandary, do they to stick with the anointed club legends they’d elevated and trust they could power the club into its next phase of domination? Or does the club turn to—and here’s a twist—a manager who’s managed in elite circles elsewhere?
Of course, there are distinctions within this trio. Two of those three were near-total novices, while the other had captured lightning in a bottle not once, not twice, but thrice, and didn’t fancy the reaction to failure—at least not until after an eight-month sabbatical. While there were times when all three seemed on the brink, the executives never balked, and Pochettino is now once again a Parisian as a result. The question now becomes: at what cost and for who? After all, there remains a world where all three managers are dispatched before the season’s end, at which point the available options are set to be far less appealing.
As it stands, it is the Blues that may be the most reticent. Whether you agree with the pressure loaded upon Lampard’s shoulders right now, you can’t deny its existence. It’d been building all December, and it’s reached a fever pitch following the Manchester City dismantling. On the one hand, some uncharacteristic patience would be a nice, and novel, thing to see at Stamford Bridge. Perhaps unlike his predecessors in similar situations, Lampard remains popular among a large portion of fans.
On the other hand, should this slide continue, a time will come when his position becomes untenable and should that happen, a stop-gap reign will once again be installed at the Bridge. Any kind of genuine progress of a genuine project will be thwarted once more. So far, the hypotheticals remain too plenteous for any kind of definitive ruling to be declared. The possibilities are ominous though, and there may be a time in the not-too-distant future when fans and higher-ups alike are pining for a Pochettino era they’d never even deigned to consider.
Was Chelsea right to stick with Lampard and ignore Pochettino? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter!