Stability. That was the word used by Todd Boehly when discussing Chelsea at a business conference in Qatar last Wednesday.
Later that evening Mauricio Pochettino navigated a young but improving team to a fourth straight win that all but sealed European football after a season away.
And by Friday Boehly was wining and dining Pochettino, with the Argentine reflecting later: “If I invite you along, and you and me have dinner, it’s not for bad things. I don’t believe that.”
Except the brief statement communicating Pochettino’s departure after less than a year at Stamford Bridge was instructive because, well, there was no mention of Boehly.
The decision to part ways with Pochettino came following two days of meetings held by co-owner Behdad Eghbali and the sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart.
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That trio decided Pochettino had not met expectations by finishing in sixth position, losing the EFL Cup final and an FA Cup semi - despite performances improving significantly late in the season.
There had also been growing tensions around how best to turn a staggeringly expensive but hugely inexperienced team into contenders.
Pochettino was eager for a greater say around recruitment, which Winstanley and Stewart would not agree to, and was unhappy with the club’s determination to appoint a set piece coach. That idea grew legs when an injury-stricken squad were conceding cheaply during the winter.
Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali have overseen chaos in two years at Chelsea. (Getty Images)And yet when the treatment room began emptying out and Pochettino was able to name strong teams over the past month, there were clear signs of promise.
In the second half of the campaign only Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool acquired more points. Cole Palmer was named the Premier League’s best young player and £115m signing Moises Caicedo was finally beginning to look comfortable.
Still, discomfort remained behind the scenes even if results and performances were on the up. Pochettino delivered a series of contradictory replies to questions over his future, while Winstanley and Stewart were starting to piece together a list of candidates to replace him.
And it was notable that as the players embarked on a lap of appreciation after Sunday’s season-closing win against Bournemouth to secure sixth place, Pochettino disappeared quietly down the tunnel.
He played down the significance of that and simply played daft when asked about the performance review while his backroom team, who have also been cut loose, were immediately heading off on holiday.
Pochettino can join them now but he is unlikely to have a shortage of suitors and will be keen on an immediate return to work. Where Chelsea go next is not yet certain, although flavour of the month Kieran McKenna is an obvious candidate, with Brighton also pushing hard to tempt him away from promoted Ipswich.
Ipswich are struggling to keep a hold of Kieran McKenna. (PA)But ultimately this decision means Chelsea’s £1bn project is back to square one. And it is worth considering that the three permanent head coaches they have now sacked, including Thomas Tuchel and Graham Potter, all departed with their reputations intact.
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There is a message in there for the owners, entirely at odds with the idea of stability.
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