Managers At Chelsea: Project Managers

How project managers at Chelsea often precede success

It’s almost as regular as the first bird sounds of spring nowadays, the rumours around February / March about potential new managers for Chelsea.

As I’ve written elsewhere, the average length of a Chelsea manager’s term at the helm since 1983 is 20 months. Only 4 managers have served 3 seasons or more. John Neal, Glenn Hoddle, Claudio Ranieri, and Jose Mourinho in his first spell.

The last time a manager completed a third season at Chelsea was 2007. 17 years ago. That’s a hell of a long time.

And here we are again. The Chelsea managerial merry go round is under starters orders. Once the stories about Chelsea considering candidates get out, chances are its’ more advanced than that. Given Mauricio Pochettino’s lack of popularity with the fans and inconsistent results, my guess is even if he makes 7th or 8th and gets Europe, a mutual decision will be made in May for him to leave. He may even make this decision himself.

This situation gave me an idea for an article series. In it, I’m going to look at the different types of managers Chelsea have had down the years, and then finish the series by looking at the types of managers we should be looking at next, maybe with some names.

I want to begin with the profile of our current manager, Mauricio Pochettino. Project managers.

Project managers, are managers who lay foundations, develop players and build a team. They have a longer term approach, their focus, their definition of success, isn’t necessarily winning trophies but developing a team. Mauricio Pochettino is a proven project manager, who built and developed teams at Southampton and Spurs, with great success. He was hired by Chelsea partially due to his ability to develop young talent and build a good atmosphere and team spirit at the club.

He’s not the first project manager Chelsea have had in the last 30 years. Glenn Hoddle, Claudio Ranieri, and Frank Lampard, were all project managers. All built teams, developed/improved players and laid foundations for successful teams. Their fruit was seen largely after they left.

People often argue project managers don’t succeed at Chelsea, but I’d argue differently. The goal of a project manager, in Chelsea history anyway, is not to win the trophies, but the put the foundations in place for trophies. In fact, all of our project managers of the last 30 years or so, now including Mauricio Pochettino, have got to cup finals in their first full seasons and lost, (all to a team in red funnily enough). The first three didn’t win any trophies as manager here. Pochettino could still change that of course, but it seems unlikely.

All of the first three managers had successors who went on to lift trophies. Glenn Hoddle had Ruud Gullit and Gianluca Vialli. Claudio Ranieri laid the foundations for Jose Mourinho in particular, and Frank Lampard built foundations for Thomas Tuchel. All interestingly, built around an experienced core, along with a bunch of talented young players - even Glenn Hoddle had the likes of Michael Duberry, Jody Morris, Eddie Newton and other younger, academy talents in his squad - and they all managed to integrate both successfully.

These type of managers are fundamental in building a successful side which goes on to sustained success. That’s been proved at Chelsea many times now. At some clubs the project manager can also be the trophy manager. Those managers are generally called ‘dynasty’ managers. Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger, and arguably Jurgen Klopp, are the best recent examples of those.

At Chelsea however, the pattern is pretty regular. A project manager comes in, lays a foundation, then their successor takes the team on to achieve success and trophies.

These managers are key to laying foundations for success and winning trophies. I actually give the owners and directors credit for recognising what we needed right now was not a manager to take a team to the final stage, but a project manager to develop the team.

Maybe that’s why Pochettino was only given a two year initial contract. His main role was to develop this team for a manager capable of competing for and winning trophies and CL football.

So where does this leave Mauricio Pochettino right now? As a project manager, what will be his eventual legacy?

There’s an argument, which I tend to agree with, that especially if Pochettino gets us into Europe, then whether he stays or goes, he’s laid a foundation with this group of players. Even without Europe, he’s clearly bonded them into a strong group, they’ve grown in character and mentality, there’s little or no toxicity. They’ve reached a cup final they were unlucky to lose, and competed against some top teams.

There’s every chance Pochettino could leave a positive legacy to whoever succeeds him, though whether he ever gets credit for it from most fans is questionable.

The only judge of that, will be time.

The Score