Pochettino’s Chelsea maelstrom the best yardstick for what lies ahead at United

Among the 20 managers with more than 290 matches in the Premier League, only the five “big beasts” of Alex Ferguson, Arsène Wenger, José Mourinho, Jürgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola have better points-per-game averages than Mauricio Pochettino. He is an elite manager.

Pochettino took over Southampton midway through their first season back in the top flight (2012-13) after the club spent seven years in the lower leagues. In his only full campaign, they finished eighth. He led Tottenham to second in 2016-17, third in the seasons either side, and reached the 2019 Champions League final. His presence lifted those clubs.

However, the Argentinian has competed in only one of the past six Premier League campaigns. Winning Ligue 1 and the Coupe de France in an 18-month spell with Paris Saint-Germain tells us little. His most pertinent recent experience for the Manchester United job is the 2023-24 season he spent at Chelsea, a campaign that left more questions than answers.

The club had finished 12th the season before, in the first year of the Todd Boehly/Clearlake Capital era. Pochettino was always likely to take Chelsea higher. And he did. But his influence is harder to judge. Opta predicted Chelsea would finish sixth in 2023-24, a forecast that proved correct. By this measure Pochettino hit par though, as Transfermarkt rated the market value of his squad as the third-highest in the Premier League in October 2023, perhaps he fell short.

The squad value grew thanks to remarkable investment. Chelsea spent more than any other club in Europe’s big five leagues in each of the three transfer windows from the summer of 2022 to the summer of 2023. Working for Boehly will have provided a good primer for the madness of Manchester United, even if the spending won’t be as generous.

Assembling a winning team from a rapidly evolving squad is not easy. Pochettino crafted a side that delivered the fifth-most expected points in 2023-24. Chelsea’s 63.4 was a fair way shy of Arsenal (81.2), Manchester City (79.3) and Liverpool (76.2) but it was a decent first season.

Chelsea conceded 63 league goals, the club’s worst figure in the Premier League era. Yet only twice have they amassed more than the 77 goals they scored. They were a little above their expected goal figures at each end but the bulk of their large goal totals was reflected in the underlying data.

But even the xG numbers raised questions, because Chelsea benefited from 12 penalties, the joint-second-most in the past 10 Premier League seasons. Chelsea have had 14 in their 86 league games since Pochettino left. They conceded five penalties and committed the joint-most Opta-defined defensive errors leading to shots (22) in Pochettino’s season.

Across three matches in April 2024 they drew 2-2 with the bottom side Sheffield United, thumped Everton 6-0 then lost 5-0 at Arsenal. They endured a similar seesaw sequence earlier in the campaign, losing 4-1 at Tottenham and Newcastle, with a 4-4 draw against Manchester City in between. Chelsea also set the record for matches in which a team score and concede at least two goals in a 38-game Premier League season (12). How do you assess a manager’s performance in that maelstrom?

If the low point was not the Arsenal loss, it was being called “billion-pound bottle jobs” by Gary Neville after losing the 2024 Carabao Cup final. Never mind that Chelsea had enough chances to win, Pochettino had to answer for the defeat. Less than three months later, he was gone.

The Premier League has evolved in Pochettino’s relatively brief absence. Arne Slot arrived, won the title and left, while Guardiola’s departure leaves no big managerial beasts remaining. There have been tactical shifts, with increased man-to-man marking across the pitch, and set-piece skirmishes have decided more matches than feels healthy.

Opta’s data shows Pochettino’s probable new side move upfield more quickly but press less intensely than his Chelsea team. There will need to be an adjustment. But can a manager whose training methods at Chelsea were described by a well-placed source as “antiquated” get up to speed as quickly as United need?

Pochettino will adapt and his Premier League record commands the utmost respect. The relevance of his recent work to United in 2026-27 is less clear.