Chelsea co-owners disagreed about manager change this summer

Chelsea’s owners reportedly had a difference in opinion regarding making a change of manager this summer, with Todd Boehly said to have signalled a preference towards giving Mauricio Pochettino more time.

In the end, Enzo Maresca replaced Pochettino at Stamford Bridge, with the Argentine dismissed after just one season in charge.

While we may never entirely know the truth about what went on behind the scenes at Chelsea at this time, The Athletic report that Boehly seemed to favour keeping Pochettino, whereas Behdad Eghbali’s trigger-happy approach ultimately led to the club making a change.

Pochettino didn’t do the most convincing job at Chelsea, but some fans will have been heartened by how the team improved as the season went on, while Boehly spoke publicly about needing to be patient and give this long-term project time.

Maresca looks an exciting appointment and there’ll surely be plenty of CFC supporters who feel they’re starting to see more of an improvement this term, but it seems far from ideal that the ownership is seemingly quite divided on this.

Chelsea enjoyed plenty of success during the Roman Abramovich era, but even that was characterised by a lot of signings, long lists of players out on loan who never appeared for the club’s first-team, and frequent managerial changes.

Still, that period did at least coincide with far better performances on the pitch, whereas now the efforts of Boehly and Eghbali to completely rebuild the west London outfit don’t seem to be working.

Chelsea fans will hope the issues between the owners can be resolved, but The Athletic suggests that the pair are no longer on speaking terms, so it’s not looking too encouraging from that point of view, and it will surely end up being the case that one of them has to make way for a full takeover for the other.