The Evening Standard’s Nick Purewal’s report today claims that Chelsea have “sounded out” representatives of Kieran McKenna and Ruben Amorim in “recent weeks.” The pair are clearly their top options as new manager if Mauricio Pochettino were to be sacked.
It’s yet another hint that the Argentine could go, despite making it into the European places with a run of 5 wins on the spin to close out the season.
Amorim is described as a top candidate who “impressed” the owners, while McKenna’s star continues to rise after completing a double promotion with Ipswich.
Pochettino has swung between darkly hinting that he and his staff could walk away, and then actively saying he hopes to stay and expects to still be in place next season. The lack of clarity still hanging over the team is really becoming damaging now.
Stability should be prioritised
At this stage, the strong end to Chelsea’s season has convinced the vast majority of fans that Pochettino should be given at least the start of next season to have another go.
Even those who are big fans of Amorim and McKenna would argue that keeping some stability is more important to this team than anything else. Firing a manager because they’ve done a terrible job is one thing. Firing a manager because they’ve done an average job is quite different. There is such a thing as having standards which are too high if it actively hurts your long term progress by constantly producing short term disruption.
After a flurry of coaches in the last few years, we’re crying out for stability at the moment, and we would still be surprised if that’s not the direction that the sporting directors and owners decide to go in, despite these hints that they may shock us all with another early termination.
“Stability should be prioritised” are four words that I never expected to hear from SuperFrank, lol! I happen to agree and, indeed, have maintained ever since the beginning of the season (even while SuperFrank and the crowd he panders to were screaming for Poch’s head) that the club and this young squad needed the stability of a single manager for an entire season—come what may.
And lo and behold, look what happened! Out of the depths of some dark December days when everyone wanted the manager sacked (once again!) Poch helped this group turn a corner. He showed faith in his young charges, the ownership showed faith in him, and despite the faithlessness of so many in the fanbase who lobbed vitriol at all of the above, this group forged an identity. They showed a belief in one another and that seemed to grow stronger with every match down the homestretch.
So, yeah, I don’t know why SuperFrank took so long to come to Jesus and understand that (as Todd Boehly recently said) you can’t build anything without patience, but I wholeheartedly agree that dismissing Poch at this point would be a HUGE MISTAKE. It’s one thing for the front office to conduct their review and it’s fine that they sounded out potential replacements (since they didn’t know how the final weeks would turn out), but, as the dust settles, it would be horribly detrimental to the strides this squad has taken to sack a manager they all appear to adore and believe in.
Please give this Man chance
5 wins back to back changes nothing, I was at the Bournemouth match and they could have scored two or three, then what would the consesus be? We have been inconsitant throughout the season and at times awful against teams we should have been easily beating. Poch’s tactics, esp in defence and set pieces are not in line with that of a top four manager – time for a change.
Pochetino should go, we need a coach of dezerbi type. Amorim is good but if Chelsea can get dezerbi we will produce wonderful results