3 reasons why Chelsea will ultimately fire Mauricio Pochettino

Chelsea suffered another disappointing result this past week in the Premier League, drawing 2-2 with Burnley despite another brace from Cole Palmer, who is now sitting pretty with 21 goal contributions in his first season in London.

Other than Palmer, however, there isn’t much to like about Chelsea, especially from an attacking sense, and a lot of the pressure keeps falling on the increasingly weak shoulders of former Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino.

As Poch’s seat grows warmer, the chances of him ultimately being axed by Todd Boehly, who already went through two coaches last season, increases.

Here are three reasons why Chelsea will end up making the decision to kick Pochettino to the side of the road.

He undermines any sense of confidence

Mauricio Pochettino’s press conferences are disasterclasses. Whereas Jürgen Klopp regularly defends his players, Pep Guardiola exudes confidence, Mikel Arteta keeps a cool head in his process, and Ange Postecoglou brings fiery charisma, Pochettino limps to the microphone and somehow seems to make everyone feel worse about the situation at the club.

Whether that is preemptively complaining about refs, conceding failure before a match has begun, or throwing his players under the bus, Pochettino has consistently provided the wrong answers to the media, who are always more than happy to shove criticism right back at the increasingly overwhelmed manager.

In his latest misstep, Pochettino seemed to throw his players under the bus again, which has been something of a consistent problem during his time at Chelsea and even in his doomed tenure with PSG.

Poch doesn’t take enough accountability when the team struggles, and that hurts the way the players view him. Instead of saying the buck stops with him, the highly-paid manager absolves himself of too much criticism and fails to protect a (mostly) young squad.

Top talents have not grown under Pochettino

To the point of his squad being young, it is difficult to point to any young players who have shown legitimate growth under Mauricio Pochettino. Chelsea invested heavily in Enzo Fernández and Mykhaylo Mudryk, for example, and they were wanted very much by other top clubs in Europe, such as Arsenal and Barcelona.

Instead of improving, Fernández and Mudryk look worse and worse with more time under Pochettino. They look like inferior players to the versions we saw at the Champions League and World Cup level, so simply chalking things up to strength of the league is illegitimate. There are players on other mid-table Premier League clubs with less talent who are outshining these two.

Chelsea’s biggest hits have been new signings Cole Palmer and Malo Gusto, but they were successful from the moment they stepped foot at Stamford Bridge. Pochettino cannot take credit for their success, because they haven’t necessarily grown under him. They were already great.

Chelsea couldn’t do worse with someone else

When taking the disappointing results, the consistent mid-table status, the lack of improvement from young players, and the non-existent charisma, it is hard to argue that another manager could step in and do any worse of job than what Mauricio Pochettino has done as Chelsea manager.

Chelsea could hire any manager off the street, and they would not undermine the club or create a more polarizing atmosphere of uncertainty around Stamford Bridge. They could take a gamble on a virtual unknown from the Bundesliga like Sebastian Hoeneß, and he could do no worse than taking a billion euro squad into the doldrums of Premier League mid-table obscurity.

For that reason, Todd Boehly may not have any issue taking a gamble on someone else. If anything, it feels like he is only holding onto Pochettino because of the optics of firing yet another notable manager, but with Boehly already facing mounting criticism and the club sinking further into laughingstock territory, what do the Blues have left to lose when it comes to perception?