Impassioned Mauricio Pochettino 'confident' over long-term Chelsea future as pressure mounts
Mauricio Pochettino is “confident” the owners will give him time to turn Chelsea around and denies he has to qualify for Europe to avoid getting sacked.
The Argentine was reflecting on the fallout out of a difficult week after his team were labelled “£1billion bottle jobs” by Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville following the 1-0 Carabao Cup final defeat to Liverpool.
He has also seen his future again questioned this week, having missed the first chance to win silverware and qualify for Europe on Sunday.
Chelsea are 11th in the Premier League table and falling behind in the race to qualify for the Europa League or Conference League.
Ahead of a what looks like an increasingly must-win home match against Championship Leeds in the FA Cup fifth round, Pochettino was asked whether he is confident the owners will give him the time he needs.
“Why not? I am confident,” Pochettino said. “Until they decide to tell me something else. But at the moment, I don’t think they are going to tell me anything different.”
Winning the FA Cup would put the gloss on a troubled season at Chelsea and ensure qualification for the Europa League.
But Pochettino denies he has been told his future hinges on whether he qualifies for Europe. “From who? From the sporting directors and the owners? No. I don’t remember, I don’t.”
He added: “We wanted to win the Carabao Cup. We want to win the FA Cup. We want to win the Premier League. Now it’s tough.
“It’s the reality, but before the start of the season, it was always the objective [to qualify for Europe and win trophies].
“Now our reality is to see if we can qualify to play in Europe next season, but of course, it’s going to be tough because of the circumstances and because of the reality.”
He continued to explain how he has worked hard to ensure he has positive relationships with the owners Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali, along with the two influential sporting directors Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley, so they understand “his reality, his truth”.
Part of that has been in expressing his own disappointment at losing a cup final, which represented a chance to win his first trophy in English football, after five-and-a-half years without doing so at Tottenham. “I feel the support from them. I cannot lie to you. When I went up the steps at Wembley, I was so upset that I was nearly crying,” he continued.
“When I arrived there [at the top of the steps], it was so difficult to stop myself."
He then explained that he shook the hands of both co-owners simultaneously despite the cameras missing his handshake with Boehly on the TV broadcast. "But when I saw Behdad, I saw Todd, and I shook hands with both of them, one of them with one hand, the other with my other hand," he said as he acted out the scene.
"Then I got a text later, a very, very nice text from Todd, which I can show. Then I met Behdad [Eghbali] two hours later, away from Wembley in London.
“He was really, really good and was disappointed like everyone but happy with the performance in 90 minutes. But knew we couldn’t keep that energy in extra time. I think people are clever enough to understand.”
But he admitted the challenge remains in convincing supporters and other external voices that he deserves more time.
“Unfortunately, we cannot translate that into points,” he continued. “[There are] good relationships but it’s not three points. We are starting to build something but it’s not three points. Always we are going to need time. That is why [this] Chelsea is different and we have to accept that.”
He added: “For me, the players have amazing quality but they need time. It’s not an excuse for me.
“Whether I am here or not - it depends on my job and I think we are doing an amazing job - but we cannot see greater result but I think with time we are going to have an amazing team because we are young, we are learning, we create something that is starting to appear on the training ground.
“Today the conversation with all the players ‘coach, we want to be there, we want to be there’.”