Mauricio Pochettino will soon take charge of Chelsea and
Mauricio Pochettino will be left with no shortage of tasks when he arrives at Cobham this summer. The incoming Blues boss will swiftly have to assess his squad, set up the players he trusts to bounce back from a 12th-placed finish and to galvanise the group of stars remaining and supporters.
Graham Potter was placed in a more difficult position. Initially, simply by not being Tuchel.
The former Brighton boss came into the role already having to win supporters over and when an initial unbeaten-run fell after nine games, the pressure grew.
The 48-year-old coach was undoubtedly strong in his convictions but was always measured and gave little away speaking to the press. Many hoped to see players or officials criticised, the possibility of using a backs-against-the-walls approach to inspire an upturn at Stamford Bridge but it never arrived.
He explained: "Of course, I get angry, I’m a human being like you, it’s just I choose to conduct myself in the way I think is the right way to conduct myself on the sideline. I think the same media are talking about me being angrier but then running stories about problems with referees at grassroots level. They don’t see the connection. That’s not to say we don’t all lose our temper; we do because it’s an emotional thing.
"I have a responsibility to myself, to Chelsea, to the game, and to act in a way that is the right thing for me. If you think that you can start a coaching career in the ninth tier of English football – the Northern Counties Division One – and get to this point, Chelsea and the Champions League, without sometimes getting angry or being nice, then I would suggest you don’t know anything about anything."
The pressure will be on Pochettino to deliver both in coaching and in supporter relations. His bond with Tottenham fans was obviously significant given the journey he took his Spurs side on. Time will tell whether he can recreate something similar with a Chelsea side that will hope they can only look up.
In his previous stay in London, Pochettino was known for being personable and charismatic but it does not appear he was able to show that side of himself at PSG. He too seemed to suffer from following Tuchel, albeit in a different way.
L'Equipe writer Pierre-Etienne Minonzio told FourFourTwo: "When he arrived at PSG, I wrote a story explaining how he’d been praised for his work in England, and he’d been so good in press conferences. Soon, journalists covering PSG said to me, 'Mate, you must have been lying in that article, he’s awful at press conferences here!'
"At PSG, they were always the most awful thing you could imagine. He only spoke a bit of French, so it was in Spanish with translation, and he was overwhelmingly cautious – he never said anything about anything.
"At Spurs, he was the only one to speak, because Daniel Levy almost never gave any interviews and there wasn’t a sporting director who spoke. At PSG, the sporting director Leonardo had a direct line with the media and the president Nasser Al-Khelaifi also gives interviews sometimes.
"Pochettino was in a situation where he wasn’t the master of communication, and before him, there was Tuchel, who more or less left because he was too offensive in his communications, and Leonardo wasn’t happy with that. Pochettino thought, 'I don’t want to make the same mistake as Tuchel, I’ll be very cautious', but it was too cautious. When a guy always gives short answers, it creates a sense that he’s not happy to be there, that he’s not at ease."
At Chelsea, Pochettino will once again be the figurehead and the public face. That will provide him with an early opportunity to get supporters and players on board providing results quickly follow.
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