Why the Carabao Cup is so important for Chelsea, Pochettino،
Mauricio Pochettino may well see the light at the end of a long, dark tunnel at Chelsea, but such is the precarious nature of progress at Stamford Bridge that the manager will move closer to Tuesday's Carabao Cup semi-final second leg against Middlesbrough. with a mixture of anticipation and dread.
This meeting represents a fork in the road for the former Tottenham and Paris Saint-Germain coach. With Chelsea trailing 1-0 from the first leg against Michael Carrick's side – Boro sit 11th in the EFL Championship table – anything but a win will see Pochettino's side eliminated. The odds favor Chelsea in their bid to overturn the one-goal deficit and confirm a place in next month's final, but the only certainty with Pochettino's young side is their inconsistency, so no one will be making plans for Wembley for now.
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Following the defeat at Middlesbrough earlier this month, Chelsea fans turned on their players late in the match with an angry reaction as they left the pitch. Pochettino spent the following day moving on social media alongside former Bayern Munich and Germany coach Hansi Flick, who was cited as his potential replacement. Such is life in Premier League management.
The defeat was a rare incident in a period which has seen Pochettino begin to turn things around after a difficult first six months in office. The noise created by the Middlesbrough defeat, however, drowned out the progress made on and off the pitch.
Chelsea have won four of their last five games in all competitions – the defeat at Boro being their only negative result – and a rare sense of calm has fallen over the club during the transfer window. There has been no lavish spending on overpriced new signings, with just a handful of discreet loans coming in and out. Fears that key midfielder Conor Gallagher would be shipped off by the club simply to cash in on his status as a homegrown player and benefit from a purely lucrative transfer fee have so far failed to materialize, and Pochettino's side is slowly climbing the Premier League table.
For the first time in two years, since former owner Roman Abramovich was forced to sell the club after his assets were frozen following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, normality is starting to return to Stamford Bridge . If Chelsea beat Middlesbrough and reach the final, Pochettino can look forward to winning a trophy in his first season at the club. It would also be his first in English football, having failed to win silverware during five seasons at Tottenham and one with Southampton.
Yet failing to beat a team from a lower division in a two-legged semi-final would plunge Pochettino and Chelsea back into turmoil. Given the owners' investment in the team, with £910 million spent on 25 players since purchasing the club, any further setbacks could increase the risk of ownership making another change of direction: Pochettino is already the club's fourth manager since the May 2022 takeover.
To his credit, Pochettino identified his team's weaknesses, saying after the Middlesbrough defeat: “For us it's like we have to play well, we have to score goals. We play well, but sometimes we're not quite clinical and sometimes we are punished. This is the process we are in at the moment.
Against Boro, Chelsea fielded a team with an average age of 24.2 years. However, if we exclude Thiago Silva, 39, this average drops to 22.8 years. Throughout this season, Pochettino has been forced to work with a multitude of young players who simply aren't ready for football at the highest level, which is why the results have been so unpredictable.
The club's owners' philosophy is to sign young players with big potential, but apart from Cole Palmer, the 21-year-old signed for £40million from Manchester City last August, few have come close to playing to their potential. Pochettino cannot escape scrutiny for this, especially after building his reputation at Spurs by developing a team of young talents including Harry Kane, Dele Alli, Ryan Mason and Eric Dier, but this Spurs team has also benefited from the presence of experienced personalities such as Hugo Lloris. , Toby Alderweireld, Christian Eriksen and Jan Vertonghen.
There is a lot less experience within the Chelsea squad. At times, Pochettino's task is akin to building flat-pack furniture without the necessary tools to do so – which is not impossible, but is likely to be slow and frustrating. However, there is progress: team selection is becoming more consistent and figures like Enzo Fernández, Nicolas Jackson and Noni Madueke are making positive contributions.
Pochettino has put his faith in Gallagher and has been rewarded by the 23-year-old's growing maturity, while Raheem Sterling is starting to show leadership as a senior player. But the next 90 minutes of Pochettino's Chelsea career could ultimately define what happens next and whether he will be allowed to carry out his job or become another victim of the owners' impatience.
