26th April, 2023
It’s safe to say that the 2022/23 Premier League season hasn’t quite gone to plan for Chelsea, with the side regularly hitting the sports news headlines for all the wrong reasons, and disappointing punters using great value free bet offers to support them.
Heading into the campaign, many Blues fans hoped their side would be ready to launch a title challenge, with a place in the top four and Champions League qualification being the bare minimum expected.
Fast forward to April 2023, with only seven games of their season remaining, the West London club instead find themselves in the bottom half of the table, fully 20 points adrift of the Champions League positions – a scarcely believable position, given the vast sums spent by Todd Boehly since the American took over the running of the club.
Since arriving at Chelsea, Boehly has spent in the region of $600 million on new signings. In the winter transfer window alone, the Blues shelled out around $350 million on players. To put that winter figure into perspective, it is more than the combined total spent by all sides in Europe’s top five leagues – Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A, and Ligue 1.
Managers Bear The Brunt of Disappointing Results
Given that level of investment, it is reasonable that Boehly may have expected more return for his money. As such, it is no real surprise that Chelsea are now onto their third manager of the season.
Many were surprised by the dismissal of Thomas Tuechel, but the capture of Graham Potter from Brighton & Hove Albion was viewed as something of a coup at the time. 31 games, and only 12 wins later, and Potter was joining Tuchel on the list of former Chelsea managers.
Rather than opt for a big-name replacement immediately, the club chose to buy themselves a little time by installing fan favourite Frank Lampard as temporary boss until the end of the season. However, any hopes that the managerial change would spark an upturn in fortunes have so far proved wide of the mark.
The opening four games under Lampard have yielded four defeats – losing to Wolverhampton Wanderers and Brighton & Hove Albion in the league, and tasting defeat home and away to be dumped out of the Champions League by Real Madrid.
Now out of all of the cup competitions and going nowhere in the league, the focus of conversation amongst fans is almost exclusively centred around who will be the next permanent manager in the hot seat.
Mauricio Heads an Ever-Shortening Shortlist
Former Bayern Munich manager Julien Nagelsman was the man most heavily touted with the job in the initial stages, but has since ruled himself out of contention. Vincent Kompany then seemingly had his hat thrust into the ring following his stellar work at Burnley, whilst ex-Spain manager Luis Enrique was also mentioned.
However, it now seems that former Tottenham Hotspur and PSG boss Mauricio Pochettino may be the man to take the reins. Having replaced Thomas Tuchel at PSG in 2021, the Argentinian has been out of work since parting ways with the French champions in July of 2022.
Like all who had gone before him, it was a failure to win the Champions League that seems to have cost “Poch” his job in Paris, but the Chelsea supremos may be attracted by his solid body of work in the Premier League.
Following an excellent spell with Southampton between 2013 and 2014, Pochettino then spent five years at Spurs, transforming the North London club into title challengers, and making the Champions League final in 2018/19. If appointed – as many expect – the Chelsea faithful would no doubt be delighted were he to repeat that level of performance at Stamford Bridge.