Coach Mauricio Pochettino has left Chelsea by mutual consent after meeting with sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart, and co-controlling owner Behdad Eghbali over the course of two days.
Pochettino agreed to his departure with Chelsea late on Tuesday morning, following the club’s end-of-season review which started on Monday.
However, there is not thought to be any bad blood between Pochettino and Chelsea, who will immediately start their search for a replacement with a young and progressive coach to be targeted.
Among the names likely to be considered will be Stuttgart’s Sebastian Hoeness, Girona’s Michel, Ipswich Town’s Kieran McKenna, who has been lined up by Brighton, and Leicester City’s Enzo Maresca.
Pochettino had met co-controlling owner Todd Boehly for dinner last Friday night, before, on Monday and Tuesday, spending several hours with Winstanley and Stewart, and meeting with Eghbali.
This means Pochettino leaves Chelsea after one year of the two-year contract he signed last summer and is in line to pocket a significant compensation fee.
The departure of Pochettino, which has been described as being ‘amicable’, makes him the third permanent head coach to lose his job under the Clearlake Capital-Boehly ownership after Thomas Tuchel and Graham Potter.
Bruno Saltor managed Chelsea for one game last season, before Frank Lampard took interim charge, meaning a total of five managers have worked under Chelsea’s current owners in two years.
A run of five successive wins at the end of this season clinched European qualification for Chelsea under Pochettino, who also took the club to the final of the Carabao Cup and the semi-final of the FA Cup.
The Argentine has left with his head held high and his reputation intact. But, in the view of key figures at Stamford Bridge, Chelsea’s season, viewed as a whole, fell short of pre-season expectations and raised issues such as the crippling injury list.
