In the 2023/24 campaign, Mauricio Pochettino will return to the Premier League following his decision to head back to the English capital, this time taking charge of Chelsea! The Blues are coming off their worst league finish in almost two decades and their new Argentine tactician undoubtedly has many issues to resolve if the west Londoners are to return to contending for the game's biggest titles. In this feature, Soccer Laduma international football writer Kamogelo Motecwane identifies three problems the 51-year-old needs to address in order to turn the Stamford Bridge-based outfit's fortunes around.
Fix Squad Harmony
Chelsea underwent a significant number of changes last season, from the club's ownership to the playing squad, to who was responsible for the playing squad. Excluding stand-in manager Bruno Saltor, the English giants incredibly had three different managers at the helm during the past campaign, with club legend Frank Lampard being the last of those. In a long and insightful recent interview, the club's all-time top goalscorer recently spoke about how when he took over the team that had already been coached by Thomas Tuchel and Graham Potter prior to his arrival on an interim basis, he witnessed a side totally devoid of unity. "When I got there, I could see the team spirit and the togetherness was not there," Lampard said, adding, "It was nothing bad, but you have to train elite to be elite." To state that Chelsea had a bloated squad last season would perhaps be a fair assessment. The Todd Boehly-led consortium that assumed ownership of the club after Roman Abramovich left in early 2022 decided to spend big and sign 16 new players over the course of the campaign. While one would assume that spending €611 million (R12.2 billion) on new arrivals would help the team improve, it seems to have only been detrimental to the squad's chemistry. Top international players were being subjected to the bench regularly and that, in turn, created an environment of unmotivated players on the training ground, which consequently made for a lack of quality on matchdays. Mauricio Pochettino has already got rid of 15 players permanently as he looks to cultivate a culture of closeness in the squad. On their preseason tour of the US, the Murphy native has made it clear the absolute maximum number of players in his squad should be 25 if he is to have a balanced team.
More Signings Needed!
For as much as the likes of Mason Mount, Edouard Mendy and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang have all left for the sake of better cohesion within the club, reinforcements at Chelsea are needed. Pochettino's squad has already been bolstered with the likes of Christopher Nkunku, who joins from RB Leipzig following a pre-agreement, and Senegal international Nicolas Jackson, as well as youngsters Angelo and Diego Moreira, but it still feels the London club will need to spend more if they are hoping to finish in UEFA Champions League qualifying positions. For instance, one can't help but think that Pochettino still needs a suitable midfield partner for the Premier League's most expensive-ever player, Enzo Fernandez. The club has already bid farewell to Mount, Mateo Kovacic, Havertz, Jorginho and N'Golo Kante over the course of the past few weeks, but nobody as good has come in to replace them. The six-time English champions have been heavily linked with Ecuadorian Moises Caicedo from Brighton Hove Albion, and perhaps his industriousness is seen as an ideal quality that can accentuate his fellow South American's best attributes, but it remains to be seen if Chelsea can strike a deal with the Seagulls for his signature. The two-time Champions League winners have already seen two bids rebuffed by Brighton and even if they do not secure the 21-year-old's services specifically, the need for a top-class midfielder is there. Another position that needs addressing is central defence. The club recently welcomed Levi Colwill back after a tremendous campaign on loan at Brighton, but following the long-term knee injury sustained by Wesley Fofana in pre-season, the need for a new center-back may have ascended Pochettino's priority list. Benoit Badiashile is coming off a long-term injury, Thiago Silva is 39 years old and Trevoh Chalobah has been heavily linked with a move away from the club in this window. This leaves Pochettino with not much to work with at the back, so a top centre-back would be of the essence, not just for now, but also for the future. Academy graduate Marc Guehi has been linked with a return to the club two years after moving to Crystal Palace, but the south London side is unlikely to let the England international go for cheap given his performances since landing at Selhurst Park.
Player Development
Since the Boehly-led consortium took over the club, there seems to have been a shift in Chelsea's recruitment policy. Under Abramovich, the west Londoners would compete with the world's best teams to try to sign the A-listers of world football, but since the beginning of last season, it seems they are looking only at bringing in players who have the potential to reach superstardom. The eight-time FA Cup winners have gone from signing Ballon d'Or contenders such as Andriy Shevchenko and Fernando Torres to signing players who could ascend to such levels of greatness in Fernandez and Mykhailo Mudryk. Last season, they both failed to hit the ground running, but with Pochettino at the helm, perhaps the club has found the right man to help develop these young talents. One thing the former Southampton boss was acclaimed for during his previous stint in the English topflight is his ability to make young players really good. Dele Alli, Harry Kane and Christian Eriksen are players who, under the South American, became some of the world's best during their respective spells at Tottenham Hotspur. He was also able to create a system that allowed for these prodigious young talents to flourish and grow while still competing with the league's best, and the Blues will be hoping he has a similar effect on the team. Given what the club went through during last campaign, it may seem that Chelsea's new manager has inherited a mess with a lot of adjustments that need to be made, and while the latter is perhaps true, this may also prove the most ideal situation for the Argentine. Pochettino will have a clean slate to impose his ideals on a seemingly impressionable squad. In the past, the Blues have gone from having a poor campaign (2015/16) to the very next season winning the title, so having a drastic shift in fortunes is not beyond the realms of possibility. However, the abovementioned issues are just some of the elements that will need to be adjusted if he is to turn things around at the club for the better. Given how his time at Spurs and Paris Saint-Germain ended, this might finally be where we see the best of Pochettino.
