The Pros and Cons of Mauricio Pochettino’s Tenure at Chelsea So Far

A look at all the good and the bad of Pochettino's management style.

After a fantastic win against Newcastle United on penalties last night in the Carabao Cup, it seems like a huge amount of pressure has been lifted off Mauricio Pochettino at Chelsea. 

When Đorđe Petrović made a stunning save from Matt Ritchie’s penalty, the roof came off Stamford Bridge and there was a collective feeling of ecstasy and relief. 

If we’d lost the game and not progressed in a tournament that clearly means a lot to the young team and the board, I fear Poch would have lost a large section of matchgoing fans’ backing. 

The win means we can be more objective and less emotional when looking at the pros and cons of Poch’s time at Chelsea so far. It certainly is easier to keep a level head after winning a game in the way we did last night. 

Pros

The first obvious pro when it comes to Pochettino’s management style is the fact he is an elite man-manager. He connects with his players on a personal level and they also buy into his philosophy and style of play. 

There have been numerous reports in the media recently that Pochettino still has the complete backing of his squad which is so refreshing to see as managers in the past would’ve lost the dressing room after some of the results we’ve had this season. 

He has the advantage of having an extremely young and talented squad of players that he can mould into the roles he needs them to be. We’ve seen at other clubs that he’s been key in unlocking the potential of his young players. Most notably Harry Kane. 

He is also extremely tactically astute. In the majority of big games we’ve had this season, we have been the better side. We completely outplayed Liverpool on the opening day, outplayed Man City and Arsenal at Stamford Bridge and thrashed Tottenham at their ground. 

Unfortunately, this hasn’t brought us a lot of wins but a big reason for that is the individual mistakes that were made in those games. That is always going to happen with young players but they need to learn from their mistakes. 

He has gone toe-to-toe with some of the best managers in the world this season, we just need to turn those good performances into wins. 

Finally, he has the perfect mentality for a Chelsea gaffer. It might sound ridiculous to non-Chelsea fans but we love our managers to have a fiery streak, argue with the refs, rant to the media and go crazy when we score. It’s a great way to relate to a manager when they act like fans at times. 

I feel like that’s what Graham Potter was missing at Chelsea. He would just accept terrible refereeing decisions and shrug them off and that really frustrated the fans. 

Poch has plenty of fantastic traits and I’m sure, given time, we will see even more. 

Cons

The gaffer is obviously not all perfect and there are some frustrating and somewhat worrying things that he’s done this season that have rightly concerned the fans. 

The main concern is the fact he tends to mis-profile players and play them out of position. He’s used Levi Colwill at LB a lot, Enzo Fernandez as a 10, Axel Disasi at RB and Ben Chilwell at LW. 

Some may argue that injuries have forced his hand, but that is only partly true. Using the LB situation as an example, throughout the whole injury crisis he’s had Ian Maatsen at his disposal. Maatsen is a Championship Team of the Year LB and would do a great job if given the chance. 

Enzo is one of the best players in world football and he’s being made to look so much worse than he is. It’s just been revealed that he is suffering through pain to play right now but Pochettino using him incorrectly isn’t helping. 

The more players we get back from injury, the fewer excuses he has to play players out of position. It is a big concern of mine but I hope he can sort it out. 

Across the whole season, his in-game management has been pretty poor too. Rarely do his subs make a difference and rarely does he tweak tactics in the game until it’s too late. 

Giving him credit where it’s due, his in-game management and subs have been spot-on in our last two games. 

Against Sheffield United, he switched Cole Palmer and Raheem Sterling's positions at half-time and they got a combined three goal involvements in the second half.

Against Newcastle, he brought Malo Gusto on who completely changed the game and his late sub Mykhailo Mudryk scored the equaliser. He also introduced Maatsen which meant we had two natural fullbacks on the pitch for the first time in a while. 

The final con I have is his over-reliance on Nkunku and Chukwuemeka. The 3-2-5 we played in pre-season had those two at the heart of it and we played some beautiful free-flowing football. He hasn’t been able to break down low-blocks without them and that is a concern. 

When Nkunku came on for his debut yesterday, we immediately changed back to the 3-2-5 we played in pre-season and we looked so much more threatening. 

I am worried that if Nkunku picks up another injury, he will run out of ideas again. 

Whether you’re a fan of him or not, we need to get behind him and his young team and yesterday’s win will go a long way in securing support from the match-going fans. 

There are glaring cons, but some of them are understandable for where the club are at and I do believe that given time, he’ll be a fantastic manager for us. It is good to see that the club don’t seem to want to do anything rash this season. 

Keep backing him and the lads, the good times are just around the corner. UTC

By Will Reyner