Things look to be going from bad to worse for Chelsea manager Mauricio Pochettino as former Premier League player Darren Bent calls for his axing.
Bent, who represented Tottenham Hotspur, Sunderland and Aston Villa in the English football top flight and is now a football broadcast pundit, was speaking on a talkSPORT show when he made these comments.
Chelsea under Pochettino have failed to impress despite the massive investment in the squad. The Todd Boehly-led administration are less than two years in and have spent over a billion (in any currency) on player and coaching staff acquisitions.
Pochettino came in with promise and won the Premier League summer series, the pre-season tournament of six Premier League clubs in the United States. The way he set up his team looked good and many believed that he will return Chelsea to top four after their shambolic performance in the 2022/23 season.
Those predictions are looking to be a bust as the Blues are currently languishing in 14th place after one win and two draws from six games. There is general discontent among the fan base, with some blaming Boehly and co for buying wrongly and others blaming the players for their performance.
Not many have blamed Pochettino but Bent, who faced some of the best Chelsea teams in his day, has come out to defend the club’s administration and suggest that the Argentine manager is not the right fit for their vision.
“You talk about Boehly. I think as a football fan, what do you want your owner to do? Put his hand in his pocket, buy players. It’s the recruitment, so whoever that person is underneath Boehly, that’s the problem,” Bent said on talkSPORT.
“Because Boehly, I know he’s come in with his crazy ideas about All-Star games and this, that and the other and trying to put players on long contracts.”
“But at the end of the day, if you’re a football fan and you get a new owner, after you’ve had Roman [Abramovich] by the way, who’s been fantastic for Chelsea.”
“You think, ‘Right, I don’t want the money to dry up, I want my owner to put his hand in his pocket and show that he cares like the previous owner did.'”
“I think he’s done that, but it’s whoever is bringing in these players, that’s the problem there because you do need stability.”
Bent then went on to suggest a change of manager as a potential solution.
“Now, [Graham] Potter was supposed to be the one that rebuilt Chelsea but yet it was getting that bad they went, ‘No, pull the plug.'”
“I almost feel like with Pochettino, if this doesn’t get better, they can say all they want about, ‘Yeah we’ll give him time, he’s got to rebuild the squad.'”
“If Chelsea, come Christmas time, are bottom half of the table and I’m talking like halfway between bottom and top ten, they might have to make a change.”
