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Former Chelsea defender Glen Johnson believes the Blues should have hired Mauricio Pochettino instead of Graham Potter as their new manager.
Chelsea parted ways with German tactician Thomas Tuchel after the team lost 1-0 against Dynamo Zagreb in the UEFA Champions League last week. They then moved quickly to appoint Potter, who impressed during his time at Brighton & Hove Albion, as their new boss.
New owner Todd Boehly reportedly paid £20 million to Brighton to land Potter. The club are rumored to have handed him a massive five-year contract worth £10m a year.
Speaking to Bettingodds.com (reported via AStamfordBridgeTooFar), Johnson said:
"When Thomas Tuchel was sacked I thought it was obvious that Chelsea would move for Mauricio Pochettino, but obviously I got it wrong. He would have been the man for me.
"I know some people were saying it would have been a cheaper option to go for Graham Potter, but it doesn’t sound that way does it?"
He added:
"They’ve had to pay many millions for the compensation and then pay a £10 million-a-year salary. You could have saved the £20 million it’s taken for Chelsea to get Potter and his backroom staff and got Pochettino instead."
Pochettino has been out of a job since being replaced by Christophe Galtier at Paris-Saint Germain (PSG) at the start of the 2022-23 campaign. He led PSG to the Ligue 1 title last season, but parted ways with the club after their failure in Europe. The Argentine tactician is best known for his work at Tottenham Hotspur.
Meanwhile, Potter started his Blues tenure with a 1-1 draw against Red Bull Salzburg in the Champions League earlier this week. The result got them their first points in the competition, but left the club at the bottom of their group after two matches.
Todd Boehly explains why he parted ways with former Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel
Boehly has heavily invested in the club since heading Clearlake Capital's takeover earlier this year. Besides spending close to £300m in the transfer market, he has also replaced most upper-level executives at the club, with Tuchel the latest to be shown the door.
Explaining his decision to sack the manager who brought the Blues the Champions League title in 2021, Boehly said during an interview:
"When you take over any business, you have to make sure you’re aligned with the people who are operating the business. Tuchel is obviously extremely talented and someone who had great success at Chelsea. Our vision for the club was finding a manager who really wanted to collaborate with us, a coach who really wanted to collaborate."
He added:
"There are a lot of walls to break down at the club. Before, the first team and academy didn’t really share data, didn’t share information about where the top players were coming from."
Boehly further noted:
"Our goal is to bring a team together, and all of that needs to be a well-oiled machine. The reality of our decision was that we weren’t sure that Thomas saw it the same way we saw it. No one is right or wrong, we just didn’t have a shared vision for the future.
Chelsea will next be seen in action only in October after the upcoming international break.
