Mauricio Pochettino has hinted that he may decide to leave Chelsea this summer – rather than potentially being sacked by the club.
The Argentinian came under increasing pressure following Chelsea’s 5-0 defeat at Arsenal last month, a match during which they were completely outplayed.
That pressure has eased in recent weeks, with back-to-back victories over London rivals Tottenham and West Ham without conceding a goal.
And the 5-0 win over West Ham came weeks after a similar 6-0 thrashing of Everton, with Pochettino’s other attackers starting to find form alongside Cole Palmer.
However, former Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho is now the favourite with some bookmakers to replace the Argentinian at Stamford Bridge next season.
Speaking in his pre-match press conference ahead of Chelsea’s trip to Nottingham Forest on Saturday, Pochettino didn’t rule out the possibility of leaving Stamford Bridge this summer – and says he, not the board, could be the one to make the final call.
You can hear what the Argentinian said below.
He told The Athletic: “Look, it [my future] is not important. The most important thing is to keep working if we are all happy, not only the owners happy with us, the sporting directors with us, or us with the organisation the club is building here, because then we are all under assessment.
“If we are happy, perfect. But it is not only if the owner is happy or the sporting directors are happy.
“If we are happy, you need to ask also because we said, ‘Look maybe we are not happy with certain situations, and maybe we are not happy and we need to split’.
“It is not going to be the first time that a coaching staff decide at the end of the season not to keep going.
“There are two parts who can take a decision. It is not only because Chelsea are not happy, the owners are not happy, the sporting directors are not happy, maybe we are not happy, because we arrived here with some job to do but in the end it has not happened what we expect. Maybe we are not happy.
“I don’t say that I am not happy, but always it is lacking one side. Maybe the other side say, ‘Okay, maybe until here’, and we split. It is not a problem. It is not going to be the end of the world.”
Pochettino’s comments come days after Blues chairman Todd Boehly appeared to give him a vote of confidence.
Speaking at an event in Los Angeles, Boehly said that the team had been playing ‘beautiful football’ in recent games, explaining: “We’ve seen over the last two and a half games at least, we played just beautiful football. It was so fluid. It was exactly the way we drew it up.
“You could really start to see what we were working on coming together. Our goal is obviously to win. And the commentary has changed over the last two and a half games.”
