Big departures will hurt Pochettino’s early situation – but may help Chelsea in the long term | OneFootball

Icon: the Chelsea News

the Chelsea News

·7 June 2023

Big departures will hurt Pochettino’s early situation – but may help Chelsea in the long term

Article image:Big departures will hurt Pochettino’s early situation – but may help Chelsea in the long term

Mauricio Pochettino has been dealt some bad cards before he’s even had his first official day as Chelsea coach.

We know that he’s losing Mason Mount, even though he wanted to keep him. We’ve heard today that he will definitely be losing N’Golo Kante too, despite the club wanting the midfielder to stay. Benoit Badiashile has injured himself in the final moments of the season, and Reece James has had a setback in his recovery.


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Overall, Pochettino will be walking into a situation which is even worse than he anticipated, and there will be even fewer experienced players around than he will have wanted.

To look on the bright side, Pochettino is a coach who wants to build something from scratch and form a tightly bonded group that make a journey together. Of course he would rather walk in and have some experienced players there to ease the transition, but this setup may help accelerate the process to a Pochettino team overall – even if there’s a little more pain to start with.

That’s the positive spin, anyway. The reality may be different – in a few months we may be wishing we had Kante along with Mateo Kovacic, Jorginho and Ruben Loftus-Cheek on the books. On the other hand, maybe our freshly refreshed midfield will have us excited about the new era to come? We can’t wait to find out, there isn’t long to go.

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