Chelsea and Mauricio Pochettino have decided to part ways.
Even though Chelsea finished the recently-concluded Premier League campaign with a win over Bournemouth and a sixth-placed finish, they are now looking for a new manager.
Hours after that game had finished, Alan Shearer did express his ‘concern’ at what he was hearing out of Chelsea.
And now those concerns have become a reality because, on Tuesday evening, Chelsea announced on their official website that Mauricio Pochettino has left.
As you can imagine, Chelsea fans were quick to have their say, as were supporters of Tottenham. He was Spurs’ best manager of the Premier League era and they were initially annoyed when he decided to join them.
One player Pochettino worked with at Spurs was Noni Madueke. He was highly-rated, but didn’t make the cut at White Hart Lane, before leaving in 2018.
Given the small world, the two would meet again, this time at Chelsea, with the latter thriving under the Argentine this season.
When the news broke of Pochettino’s exit, Madueke reacted on his Instagram story with two simple words ‘Thank You’, added with a heart emoji and an image of the two embracing.
Noni Madueke under Mauricio Pochettino
The 22-year-old wasn’t a regular starter for the first few months of the campaign. In fact, he went several matches as an unused sub.
But during the second half of the season, when only Premier League title winners Manchester City and second-placed Arsenal, earned more points than Chelsea, Madueke started to come into his own.
Overall, he scored five Premier League goals and supplied two assists. Five of those goal involvements came from April onwards.
Who will be Chelsea’s next manager?
From Thomas Tuchel to Jose Mourinho, you can bet your bottom dollar that all of them will be linked.
Mourinho, who has already had two spells at Chelsea, is currently a free agent after leaving AS Roma earlier on in the year.
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The same for Tuchel, he is no longer the Bayern Munich coach. He was sacked by this Chelsea ownership in 2022, so you can’t see them re-uniting.
It seems as though there is a bit of a power struggle at the top of the tree at Chelsea. If that’s the case, then characters like Mourinho, Tuchel or Antonio Conte won’t be returning.
Perhaps Chelsea will go down the younger route again. Sporting Lisbon coach Ruben Amorim has been on the club’s radar, as HITC revealed earlier this month.
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