Four reasons why Chelsea should not keep Mauricio Pochettino.

 Unpopular opinion

We looked at a review from WAGNH and here are their four solid reasons why Chelsea should not keep Mauricio Pochettino next season: 

1. Outdated style of football:

Pochettino’s style evolved a decade (and a half) ago during the rise of gegenpressing, an intensive running and often chaotic brand of football originating in Germany and spearheaded by Jürgen Klopp.

 In the meantime, even Klopp (reportedly under the influence of his assistant Lijnders) migrated towards Guardiola’s positional, controlled style, has adapted to modern football which nowadays consists of exclusively positional approaches inspired by Pep with all the young coaches being direct or indirect disciples of Guardiola.

Not too long ago, Klopp almost exclusively played a similar type of football to Poch (often referred to as gegenpressing), which led him to thrive against big teams and often struggle against anyone who sat deep and let his Liverpool team have the ball. 

Klopp, however, was smart and capable enough to evolve his team’s style, teach them how to play possession football, and break low blocks with ease. Time will tell if Poch will be able to do the same.

Pochettino's team purposefully create chaos, intending to get into a running match with the opponents, always seeking that ball in behind, always overloading the backline.

 Chaos by definition lacks method and structure, which means surplus of space is created between the players and between the lines (you’ve noticed the spaces we leave in midfield) which can only be covered by — running and more running. If the players don’t give 110% in each moment, it doesn’t work. Even if they do, it often doesn’t work either.

There’s a reason why we fail to control matches. Why we tend to lose the grip on a match once intensity levels drop (for example in second halves). Once there’s no intensity, the lack of structure gives in and that is always punished in modern football. No wonder why we often have no presence in midfield, even though we have midfielders of serious quality like Enzo and Caicedo, not to mention a workhorse in Conor Gallagher who would, with Caicedo already there, be an overkill in any other system bar this one.

Countless are the moments we were caught with acres of space in the middle, leaving our  midfield pivot overrun and powerless.  It is not a mistake of it either, but a deliberate move by Poch and a hallmark of his philosophy. While everyone else today works to pack the middle with bodies to control it, thereby keeping possession of the ball and stopping counterattacks before they begin, Poch does the complete opposite. Amongst other things, that results in basketball style matches* with a particular vulnerability to counters, which is the main explanation why this philosophy tends to create defensively fragile teams.

This is why 4-4-2 had gone out of fashion years (decades) ago. 4-3-3 and its variants replaced it simply due to having an extra body in the middle. In the last couple of years we’ve been witnessing the rise of the ‘box midfield’*, which one upped 4-3-3 by a further player, while lately you won’t be overly surprised if you see 5 players hoarding the middle of the pitch. Simply put, that is the direction where football is going, while our coach remains inert to it.

*Poch usually likes to form a box midfield too, but not with the same intention or structure as, say Pep or Arteta do, and not with the same spacing, which is crucial.

Regarding Arteta, if anyone’s ever used his early (and not so early) Arsenal struggles in defence of Poch, reinforcing the need for stability and time, this point is what makes all the difference; Arsenal knew they had a modern, progressive, structure-based coach most akin to his teacher Guardiola, while what we have is an outdated style. 

That is why it was worth it to Arsenal to give Arteta time and trust, and that is why it is not worth it to us to give the same to Poch.

2. Questionable tactics: Whether it’s late substitutions, lack of clear patterns of play, rarely seen in-game tweaks, seemingly counterproductive team talks, misuse of important players (Enzo), hitting the brakes in the worst moment in a cup final, general inability to keep hold of leads, terrible set piece and ever worse defensive record... everything around Poch gives an impression of an average tactical mind.

No one will ever mistake Pochettino for a tactical mastermind like Tuchel, and it is sobering to realize how used to we’ve become to having that edge on the bench, something we no longer seem to have with Poch there. 

Even the good performances in the big games (minus United and Liverpool away which were criminal) are not attributed to Poch outsmarting the opponent, but rather to the already mentioned fact his style of football inherently thrives in big games. That is further proved by the relative underperformance we’ve had this season in the ‘smaller’ games.

Often times Pochettino seems to do the obvious thing, but late. 

The ‘inversion’ of Cucurella is a most recent example, one he’s lauded for even though many people have been clamoring for it for months – and he only did it when he practically had no other choice – the 14 injuries forced his hand (playing 3 center backs alongside Cucurella meant the only sensible solution was to invert him). 

Overall, even though he does have some redeeming qualities (top tier man/team management), he’s just not that calibre of a coach we need (and deserve).

3. Amplifying injury crisis:

There have been some worrying reports of Pochettino’s fitness methods that conribute to our terrible injury record. 

Most of these reports come from the respected Twitter Chelsea fan Alex Goldberg.

 This is attributed to Poch’s reputation as a fitness freak. It is claimed his methods are outdated, contributing to our worsening injury record this season. Well documented reports of players apparently blamed his fitness regime for their injuries in his previous clubs (Spurs, PSG).

There is also a recent report from Simon Johnson of The Athletic (who’s suddenly become very much ‘Poch In’) whose player source described Poch’s training methods as "underwhelming."

Again, we cannot be certain if this is true, but even if half of it is – there is no way we can afford to keep such a coach knowing how crippling our injury record has been for the last few years.

4. Underperfomance: In fact, up until Potter’s last round, his and Poch’s results were pretty much on par, difference is Potter got fired and the season completely unraveled, while Poch stayed (only because the board learnt from past mistakes) and was allowed to reach the tangible improvement phase.

Although Pochettino's errors are glaring, it is only his first season with Chelsea.  While many would want him to be sacked, it would be pretty considerate to give him a second chance at the club.  

What's your thoughts Blues? Should Pochettino be sacked or not?