'What I understood, didn’t happen' - Mauricio Pochettino insists Chelsea exit was 'my decision' after disagreement with owners

Pochettino has claimed that his departure from Chelsea in May 2024 was a qpersonal choice stemming from a fundamental disagreement over the club's direction. Speaking to Gary Neville on The Overlap, the current USMNT manager explained that the reality of the project did not match the initial discussions he had with the club's hierarchy.

“What I understood didn't happen after. Maybe I was wrong,” Pochettino admitted. “When we arrived, we needed to understand, the team was 12th in the Premier League. We didn’t play in Europe – no Conference League, no Europa League, no Champions League. It was in the process of all the changes from one ownership to another. [There are] things that you need to put in place, things to prioritise.”

The Argentine emphasised that he felt the team was trending in the right direction after a strong finish to the 2023-24 campaign. However, when it became clear that the sporting directors and ownership held a different perspective on the progress being made, Pochettino decided it was time to part ways rather than compromise his managerial principles.

Pochettino said: "Why I think I am disappointed with internal things is, under our assessment and our vision, it was a normal process to create something solid for the future. We finished sixth, winning the last five or six games. We arrived at the final of the Carabao Cup, and we played in the semi-final of the FA Cup against Manchester City. In both games we deserved to go through – to win the final and to go through – but because of experience of different things, we didn’t win. But we were in a very good way. But when things didn’t match what was our vision, we said it’s better to split; it’s better to give the possibility to the club to do what they want. I’m not complaining because the decision was my decision to leave the club."

A significant point of contention appears to have been Chelsea's heavy reliance on data and science in their recruitment and management strategy. Pochettino, a coach who prides himself on man-management, warned that the "analogue" side of the game is being lost in the modern, digital-first approach favoured by the Blues' leadership.

“We sometimes underestimate the analogue things,” Pochettino explained. “In technology, the digital has put the analogue in the bin. But in football it’s not like this. There are still things you cannot measure with data or science. It’s still a game that keeps some mystery or some mystique that you cannot identify. I have told people, ‘When you can identify the question that a player that plays here is going to perform in that [new] environment, in those circumstances, you are going to be the richest people in the world.' But that doesn’t exist. Because that is about things you need to smell. It’s not only data; 'he shoots many times, he runs or doesn’t run, throw-ins', or like this. There are things you cannot measure with science or numbers. Football is a context of emotion. You cannot put this in the bin.”

Reflecting on the structure of the club, Pochettino suggested that the most successful models, such as Manchester City's under Pep Guardiola, involve the head coach in every major decision. He hinted that the crowded boardrooms and data-driven departments at Chelsea can sometimes overlook the basic necessity of the human connection between a coach and his squad.

“The coach cannot be in the corner and say, 'Yes, you only coach the team,' because there are too many things that are going on,” Pochettino added. “For players to perform, they need to be attached to the coaches. If not, it’s difficult. You need to connect in an emotional way, the players with the coaches. After us it was clearer the idea of the man-management of the club. They have a plan that is maybe completely different to what used to be at Chelsea in the past with [Roman] Abramovich. In a new project the most important thing is how we can translate [explain] and show what the plan is and what we want to achieve with that and how the process is going to be to arrive where we want to arrive. In football it’s sometimes difficult to explain because people only listen to results. Then it’s because it’s too many people making decisions. I told my former president Nicola Cortese at Southampton, and I put it on my board in my office: ‘Football is not an ordinary business.' You cannot compare it with another business, and sometimes people struggle. They need to explain the plan.”