Chelsea manager, Mauricio Pochettino has agreed to mutually end his time at Stamford Bridge with immediate effect. The decision was reached after the former Tottenham Hotspur and PSG manager held a meeting with Chelsea leaders following the conclusion of the season.
Mauricio Pochettino and the sporting directors agreed that they couldn’t make it work as targeted. The departure of Pochettino from Chelsea is with mutual consent on all termination terms and conditions.
Chelsea finished 5th in this season’s premier league with 44 points.
A statement by the club’s Sporting Directors Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley said “On behalf of everyone at Chelsea, we would like to express our gratitude to Mauricio for his service this season. He will be welcome back to Stamford Bridge any time and we wish him all the very best in his future coaching career.”
Mauricio said, “Thank you to the Chelsea ownership group and Sporting Directors for the opportunity to be part of this football club’s history. The Club is now well positioned to keep moving forward in the Premier League and Europe in the years to come.”
The club said it will not make comments until such a time that a new coach is appointed.
Mauricio Pochettino inherited a Chelsea side that had moved through four managers. Thomas Tuchel who led the club during its trying times in the wake of Roman Abramovich’s exit was sacked following a mass clearout by Todd Boehly and his co-owners.
Graham Potter came in but struggled to fashion out results as Chelsea struggled for results. Bruno Salter came in as interim before Blues legend Frank Lampard was given a second stint as manager with an interim role to see out the season.
The club has been busy in the transfer market since the change of ownership but failed to string together results.
Mauricio Pochettino’s side struggled to establish a pattern for results and stayed on mid-table nearly all season until the last few weeks when they surged up the table to finish the season on sixth. The respectable finish earned them European football for the next season.
They also reached the League Cup final and FA Cup semi-finalist in a season that would be viewed as one with mixed results. The baseline is that the results did not meet the owners’ Champions League qualification mark.
According to the Telegraph, there was no argument or bad blood between both sides in the meeting that lasted nearly 24 hours at Cobham where Pochettino met with Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart. The Argentine also spoke to co-owner Behdad Eghbali before terminating his contract 12 months ahead of the due date.
