Chelsea’s decision on Tuesday to part ways with manager Mauricio Pochettino surprised many former players who believe it could torpedo the club’s endeavor to return to the top of the Premier League.
Pochettino joined Chelsea ahead of the 2023-2024 campaign after the club finished 12th in the previous season.
The early months of the Argentine’s tenure were far from convincing as the expensively assembled squad took time to gel, but a run of five straight wins in their past five league games lifted them to sixth place.
Photo: AP
Former Chelsea player Craig Burley did not hold back on his assessment of Chelsea’s decision, saying it displayed a lack of vision.
“It’s all a bit of a mess, honestly,” Burley told ESPN. “He wasn’t without fault this year, but they did finish strong. They [Chelsea] just don’t have a vision. They’re stumbling from one manager to the next... There’s not really many managers out there right now.”
Ex-Chelsea midfielder Gus Poyet said Pochettino’s exit was difficult to understand.
“Everyone close to Chelsea was expecting a great summer and something important for next year,” he told Sky Sports. “But we don’t know the inside. I was shocked. I couldn’t believe it. It was kind of impossible.”
Ex-Chelsea and France defender Frank Leboeuf said Pochettino’s departure had plunged the club’s future into uncertainty.
“It’s a pity, because they’ve been exceptional for the past few games, but now we don’t know what we’re going to face next season,” Leboeuf told ESPN. “We don’t know where we’ll go with all these young players. I have doubts that it’ll be better than it was this season.”
Chelsea’s Cole Palmer, named the Premier League’s Young Player of the Season after a superb campaign, thanked Pochettino in a post on Instagram.
“Thank you for everything you have done for me and making my dreams come true. All the best,” Palmer wrote.
According to reports in British media, Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna, Sporting Lisbon’s Ruben Amorim and ex-Brighton & Hove Albion manager Roberto de Zerbi are among the leading candidates for the vacant managerial role at Chelsea.
The qualifying round of the World Baseball Classic (WBC) is to be held at the Taipei Dome between Feb. 21 and 25, Major League Baseball (MLB) announced today. Taiwan’s group also includes Spain, Nicaragua and South Africa, with two of the four teams advancing onto the 2026 WBC. Taiwan, currently ranked second in the world in the World Baseball Softball Confederation rankings, are favorites to come out of the group, the MLB said in an article announcing the matchups. Last year, Taiwan finished in a five-way tie in their group with two wins and two losses, but finished last on tiebreakers after giving
North Korea’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup-winning team on Saturday received a heroes’ welcome back in the capital, Pyongyang, with hundreds of people on the streets to celebrate their success. They had defeated Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the U17 World Cup final in the Dominican Republic on Nov. 3. It was the second global title in two months for secretive North Korea — largely closed off to the outside world; they also lifted the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in September. Officials and players’ families gathered at Pyongyang International Airport to wave flowers and North Korea flags as the
For King Faisal, a 20-year-old winger from Ghana, the invitation to move to Brazil to play soccer “was a dream.” “I believed when I came here, it would help me change the life of my family and many other people,” he said in Sao Paulo. For the past year and a half, he has been playing on the under-20s squad for Sao Paulo FC, one of South America’s most prominent clubs. He and a small number of other Africans are tearing across pitches in a country known as the biggest producer and exporter of soccer stars in the world, from Pele to Neymar. For
Coco Gauff of the US on Friday defeated top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 to set up a showdown with Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen in the final of the WTA Finals, while in the doubles, Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching was eliminated. Gauff generated six break points to Belarusian Sabalenka’s four and built on early momentum in the opening set’s tiebreak that she carried through to the second set. She is the youngest player at 20 to make the final at the WTA Finals since Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki in 2010. Zheng earlier defeated Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 7-5 to book
RSS