Mauricio Pochettino is a man in the eye of a cyclone, a man whose employers shimmer on the surface but have fault lines running deep within.
He allowed a smile at Chelsea’s Premier League Summer Series trophy presentation … for five seconds. After Thiago Silva and Reece James bumbled past to lift a meaningless trinket, his face turned to stone. He knows the coming weeks will define Chelsea’s season and his future in one of football’s most precarious jobs.
In pure footballing terms, the Blues have had a good pre-season. Four wins and a draw. Twelve scored and four conceded. Wrexham, Brighton, and Fulham dispatched, Newcastle the foes of an honourable draw. Borussia Dortmund await as the final practice before the season proper.
They are suddenly exciting to watch. A team who could not find the back of the net last season are plundering it for fun.
New boys Nicolas Jackson and Christopher Nkunku have shone. Andrey Santos looks like a gem in midfield. Mykhailo Mudryk is showing what he can do with his blistering pace and finally managed to register his first Chelsea goal. Some thought he’d grow a grey beard before that day would arrive.
Mauricio Pochettino has overseen a successful pre-season but is frustrated with recruitment
Nicolas Jackson and Christopher Nkunku have dazzled in Chelsea colours so far this summer
But all is not peaceful in the fields of Stamford Bridge. The squad is bloated and must be trimmed. Brutal days have passed and brutal days are coming.
A grand total of 29 players were on Chelsea’s plane to the USA. Conor Gallagher was probably clinging on to one of the wings, begging them not to take off without him.
Pochettino has been forthright when speaking about the need to downsize the squad. ‘There are too many players,’ he said after the 5-0 win over Wrexham.
‘We need to assess and analyse and see what happens with them in the season. Many decisions that we need to take.’
Just a few days ago, he warned that there will be cuts to the squad to avoid a mess. ‘We are 29 players here and the squad is massive (…) we cannot have a massive squad, players not involved, then it’s going to create a mess.
‘Maybe less is more and more is less. That is why I need to make clear – we don’t need a big squad.
‘We need 22, 23, 24 players with some younger, and that’s it. I am so sorry because maybe the decision will be tough, but we need to build a good and balanced team who want to compete for things.’
He couldn’t be much clearer.
Pochettino is rightly worried that as things stand, the club could face one of the problems that plagued them last year – a ridiculously oversized squad leading to grumbles and confusion. Chelsea used 32 players in the Premier League last season, a total only beaten by Nottingham Forest and Southampton. Manchester City used 24, Arsenal 26.
The Argentine manager warned that Chelsea’s overstuffed squad is ‘going to create a mess’
Chelsea’s players have undergone rigorous training as Pochettino pushes to raise standards
Standards fell off a cliff. Players were reportedly applying minimal effort in the gym and leaving at the first opportunity. This pre-season, their new Argentine taskmaster has clamped down; double training sessions, every session filmed and used to hold players accountable, the pressure to be relentless rising. That’s how Pochettino likes it.
And yet there is a tension at play. While Chelsea’s squad is healthily sized, it is also lacking cutting-edge talent. While they must slice off dead wood, they must also plant anew fresh signings. The club run the risk of cutting the squad to the bone or if they go haywire with recruitment again, re-bloating it. They could have a vicious cycle on their hands.
Chelsea have already permanently lost 13 players this summer, most of them first-teamers.
The centre of midfield midfield is looking particularly threadbare, with Enzo Fernandez and Gallagher standing as the two proven senior options.
Players such as Hakim Ziyech and Romelu Lukaku look fine options on paper but do not want to be at the club. Too many are inconsistent or injury-prone. Somehow, despite the lavish spending of the last two transfer windows, they require another overhaul.
What will frustrate Pochettino is that it has been a slow-moving window in terms of arrivals. By this stage of the summer, Pochettino should be able to confidently say who most of his starting 11 are, with perhaps a gap or two to fill. Instead, he is left knowing several players are going to depart and more will come in.
A £40m deal has been agreed for Monaco centre-back Axel Disasi and they are chasing Moises Caicedo, for whom Brighton have rejected their £80m bid. Landing those two will go some way to addressing the dearth of quality. Disasi played every league game for Monaco last year while Caicedo is a good box-to-box midfielder.
Hope rests in the recruitment drive of youngsters, too. Chelsea are aiming to become a powerhouse of youth development and have added an array of talents ‘for the future’ from the U21s and elsewhere.
Lesley Ugochukwu could join Chelsea and then immediately leave on loan to Strasbourg
The club have agreed £40m deal for Monaco centre-back Axel Disasi as they finesse defences
Brighton have turned down an £80million offer for box-to-box midfielder Moises Caicedo
A £23.5million move for Rennes midfielder Lesley Ugochukwu has been agreed, and he would join Diego Moreira, Dujuan Richards, and Angelo Gabriel in being hoovered up this summer for long-term development. Ugochukwu could be loaned immediately to partner club Strasbourg.
But all the talk of long-termism and multi-club models does now help Pochettino fight the fires of the present, and he has come across frustrated. After Chelsea agreed the deal for Ugochukwu, he sounded fed up.
‘My information is he is a player that is from France that maybe they are signing with the idea to send on some loan, using a different club, but that information was already in your laptop,’ he said. ‘There is nothing to say too much.’
Nothing to say? Talk about welcoming a fresh face. And in actual fact there is a lot to say, Mauricio. A lot. You’ve already said some of it.
